Guys, I wanted to add myself to the long line of happy Aric Audio customers. When I was looking to tubes to add musicality to my system, it was this very thread and your feedback that made me decide Aric was the right way to go.
I emailed Aric, and he kindly offered to jump on the phone with me even though he was on his vacation. Over the next week or so, we discussed and finalized the build on a Trascend 6SN7 Linestage to the exact spec and functionality I wanted. He was patient with all my questions and "what if"s. After all the parts arrived, he put it all together in record time. I was saying how it would be great if it arrived before the weekend, and Aric shipped it out in 2 days to make that happen.
Now the sound. By 20 hours, you can really start to hear the magic of this thing. By 60 hours, it's doing exactly what I wanted it to do. I used to cringe at the older, poorly recorded albums on Tidal because it sounded very harsh. Now no matter what the music, The Transcend brings a level of fluidity and polish to it without sacrificing any detail or seeming veiled. And this is about 100 hours in on the stock tubes. I have asked for a HT bypass switch on the back and have used it to A/B the music with/without the preamp in the chain. I vastly prefer it with.
Overall I'm extremely happy with my purchase. Big thanks to Aric, who was a great guy to deal with. If I had more efficient speakers, I'd be seriously looking at his amps too. Can't wait to try some different tubes at some point and see how much more magic that unlocks.
