Anything as " fast" as SPECTRAL gear?

To me, "Speed" seems more of a real issue with various transducers than with amplifiers.

Speed when it is incorrect can also be perceived as a slowing down, a lethargy as it were, of the music overall, as if something is a little wrong with the timing. Thus, a piece that would normally take 3:50 to play is perceived as taking say 3:57 to play.

I agree and the opposite is also true ime. Those Meridian 105s will fool you into perceiving a faster than normal pace.

But there's another question that hasn't come up and that's 'how much of an influence does a pre amp have in perceived speed'?

"02-19-15: Csontos
But there's another question that hasn't come up and that's 'how much of an influence does a pre amp have in perceived speed'?"

Actually, I did bring that up. lol. All components in the system have an effect on a systems "speed". A good example is Naim because they are associated with the whole PRAT issue. I spoke to them and asked them about this and they suggested that I start off with a preamp if I really wanted to see what the Naim sound was all about. Ultimately, Naim wasn't for me, but its a good example of how other components effect a systems speed. When I said in my other post my MF integrated had a sound that was kind of like a "gimmick", for lack of a better term, there was just too much attack. It definitely had the speed that is a big part of the PRAT sound, but the sound fell short because there was no foundation to the music. For a more complete sound, and not necessarily just speed on the attack, but tempered with resonance and decay, some good examples would be my old ARC VT-100 and Quicksilver V-4's for tubes, and for SS, Ayre is the best I've heard in this respect. With these products, they components sense of speed is balanced with other qualities that give a more complete sound.