Berning ZH270 vs 845 SET amp

Pfront- tone color or vibrancy pretty good description of what I thought the Berning lacked. In my case, I believe that the Joule amps provide a bigger or richer harmonic envelope and more emotion. They can be considered a bit slower than the Berning without the proper cabling.

It an effort to help the thread my speakers are Coincident Super E III's. 92 db, 14ohm. So any amp "should" work fine. My concern with the Berning is that people say it does not sound like tubes a littlelifeless and of course some people say the opposite. I am looking for a little concensus.
I like the sounds of tubes. I have a p/p Cary, I just want to move up the ladder a little bit.
I only have one source a Cary 306 SACD.
Thanks
Mike

If you like a classic tube sound in your amp, you will not get it from the Berning. To my ears and in my system the ZH270 just sounds right. It is very fast as people have mentioned and it is very dynamic. I feel it is the perfect match for my Supratek Cortese preamp and Gallo speakers. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the feedback settings on the Berning can to some degree give the Berning the tubey sound. I use the normal feedback for my Gallo speakers. This setting provides me with a good solid and powerful bass. If I go to the low feedback setting the bass gets very warm and fat sounding. Personally, I do not like this sound.

Music Reference RM-9. Like the Berning you can use the feedback settings to tailor the sound, but it is an EL-34 based amp that will one up the Cary (and I have owned Cary gear).

Hi Mike,

Since you are looking for a consensus, I will give you my .02 worth. I agree with Slowhand (hi Tom). As well as being fast, they deliver VERY nice top to bottom sound. They will however, let you know when you have a cable or other system link that does not pull its weight or is not suited to your system. They are brutally honest. When you get it right, the ZH270 will reward you big time, as long as you aren't looking for the typical soft tube sound.

Bass is tight and dynamic. Very untube like. Top end is smooth and extended in my system. Mids just keep making me smile. Energy is conveyed much like a live, unamplified performance would give the listener. I have had eight different amps (MBL 9011's, Krell, Sim Audio,Lamm, Pass etc)in my current system and Berning ZH270's are the second best amps I have heard here. The best? The new Quadrature Z mono blocks that I commissioned Dave to build for me. It took two years for delivery but holy s***, these babies make my MBL's sing!
Steve