Grr6001,
I couldn't agree with you more. My room is 15 X 21. I have a carpeted floor and a few sound panels situated to reduce first reflection points. I sold my darTZeel amp and preamp in favor of a BAT VK52SE preamp and VK 250SE power amp. Speaking strictly in terms of sound the darTZeel's were a slight bit more transparent . The BAT's have a better bottom end. They only give up a very slight bit to the darTs in overall absolute performance and cost a fraction of what the darTs cost. The darTs are much nicer to look at. I had maintenance issues with both my darTZeel preamp and amp. I am basically a plug and play kind of audiophile. I replaced my Evolution Acoustics MM2s with a pair of Hansen Prince speakers. I use Stealth Metacarbon balanced interconnects and Kubala-Sosna Emotion speaker cables. I only owned the EV MM2s for about seven months. I did break them in. They didn't work well for me in my room at all. I found that if I tried to adjust them to anything other than a flat setting they just didn't sound "right". I've looked at your system and I see you have a lot of the components that I've moved on from. I certainly respect your pursuit of great sound. I am finally very pleased with the overall sound, ergonomics, build quality, and convenience of my system at this time. I'm not going to state that it's better than anybody else's system, just that it's the best overall system I've owned since getting involved in this hobby. If I had to choose a favorite component, I truly love the Hansen speakers. I don't plan on ever parting with them. They work in my room and they are small enough that if I sell my home and eventually down size (not for 10 years) I can take them with me.
The Modwright Truth Transporter can only sound its best if you upgrade the tubes. I'm running a Mullard GZ345AR4 rectifier and RCA 6CG7 tubes I bought from Andy at Vintage Tube Services. They made a huge difference. I've been listening to Pandora music service a lot. I know it's not true hi resolution, but I love all the variety and new music I've been listening to. I always wanted a tuner, but never was able to get the reception I wanted. The Pandora service is great!
Happy listening.