Better than a CAT?

Pubul57 has a good point, but in some cases the more powerful amps coast along so effortlessly that they sound more relaxed.

I owned VTL 750's and 450's and clearly the 750's were much better.

Hi, I am one of the guys that Pubul57 maybe refering to regarding the Ming DA 2A3 preamp. It replaced my CAT Ultimate and was better by a wide margin. Like any tubed gear, to get the best performance, tube rolling is necessary. I EXTENSIVELY rolled the CAT Ult and took it as far as I could with rolling and PC's, IC's. The Ming DA is in a different league. Pacificvalve.com is the sole (to my knowledge) US distributor. They offer a thirty day in home audition. You pay for the shipping and a 3% restocking fee. I think it would come to $150 to try.
The stock 2A3 Chinese tubes are not bad but the others should be rolled 6SN7 (3), 6922 (3), EL34 (1). I think the preamp costs $1250. Truly a giant killer. I still use the JL2. I wanted to buy a pair of Ming DA monoblocks but the only ones that I felt would be powerful enough to drive my Avalon Osiris were discontinued.

Bart

I owned the CAT JL2 and subsequently,the JL2 reference Signature. I compared it with the Music Reference RM9 Special, which was better in every respect. I sold the JL2 and bought the special, which Roger Mojesky sells directly for $8,000 and of which he only made 20. I consider myself very lucky to have found this gem. I've listened to more music in the last 6 months then in the last 5 years because listening has become a sheer joy, pure pleaseure. Whereas every amp I've ever owned let me listen to the music the RM9 Special let's me feel it. I plan to write a full review of this amp soon. Let me just say, I owned the Tenor before I bought the CAT. The CAT destroyed the Tenor. Similarly,the RM9 killed the CAT.

Interesting. I too recently bought an Music Reference RM9 SE, so I think Roger only has a handful left.

Things sure go in circles! The RM-9 was one of the benchmark amplifiers that we felt it was important to compare to, back a good 18 years ago. I'm guessing that the RM-9s back then were not 'SE'.