David, I do admit freely that there are a lot of amps with greater authority than 312. My old Rowland 7M monoblocks for example, had comfortably greater authority than 312. . . after all, 312 peaks at 40 amps for a fraction of a second, while the old 7Ms peak at 50 Amps continuous. Having said that, I really would love for you to visit my system and bring your Wadia player along for the ride. . . I am not at all experiencing shiness in the bass region, on the contrary. My room is relatively dampened. It may be a matter of different speakers, CDp, and cabling. . . or simply different personal preferences. And while I do listen to music at relatively high volume, I probably never get 312 to near clipping situations.
I found your observations about Criterion sound extremely a propos. . . 'majestic' is definitely one of its sonic attributes. . . . and it is rather unflappable even when it yields very high dynamic swings.
I found that 312 is very sensitive to power cords. . . including what it does in the bass region. This far, some of the very deepest and cleanest bass has been with Shunyata King Cobra power cords, and Furutech High Performance ICs and speaker wires. I have further found that good power distribution also contributes to a tuneful, deep, and linear bass performance.
