Essentialaudio, your point about the DarTZeel combo being shown at RMAF and at CES or privately at last January's show is irrelevant to what Jonathan and Elberoth2 are talking about. If you read Elberoth2's comments carefully, he seems to be implying that this combo (ie. the Dart preamp and amp together) was heard, and more importantly, OWNED! by an audiogon member's close friend in his/her system that consisted of Avalon speakers:
I have heard form one of the most credible audiogon users that his close friend wasn't impressed at all by dart combo.
This seems to explicitely imply that the the dart pre and amp were indeed heard together.
He uses same speakers as I do - Avalon Eidolon Vision - and much preffered both ARC Ref2/VTM200 combination (which he sold to get the dart) and the VTL7.5/S400 combo he bought AFTER selling the dart combo (pre + power).
I don't know about you, but this clearly suggests to me that this person replaced the Arc combo with the darts combo but sold the darts combo and ended up with the VTL combo. This really seems to imply that the Darts combo was heard in this guy's system. I of course am not disputing the credibility of Elberoth or the audiogon member or his friend, since it's all about personal preference.
But whether this audiogon user has INDEED OWNED (and not whether he heard it at the show) is the main point of contention here I think. So if there has indeed only been 3 DarTZeel preamps shipped, has this close friend of a supposedly credible audiogon member really heard it?
