@hifi59 I’m glad to hear you are enjoying the PH9.0X. It truly is one of the best purchases I ever made, and I still feel that way even if I’ve moved past it. I have endless respect for what Dan was able to achieve with it given the price point.
About three weeks in now with the Audionet PAM G2 and EPC combo, and has been performing admirably. The heavier weight in the delivery opened up a bit, and the bass performance has gotten tighter without losing intensity. It truly is an incredibly liquid sounding unit, incredibly involving and detailed. I simply can’t believe it is not a tube-based unit considering the beautiful harmonics and bloom, but the ultra-low noise and detail retrieval make it obvious it surpasses the performance of most if not all tube units on the market. So far no regrets purchasing it.
But now, enter the BMC MCCI Signature ULN, which arrived this past Friday. It is a gorgeous unit inside and out. The craftsmanship is impeccable. From an engineering perspective, it seems to be on an opposite side of the spectrum as it operates in the current injection / transimpedance paradigm. I want to give the unit the benefit of the doubt as it’s absolutely not broken in with probably 10 hours of play time on it max, so we’ll have to see how it plays out, but I’ll say my first impression with it doesn’t win me over the way the Audionet does. The tonal balance is tipped a bit higher and though with some records the BMC’s snappiness actually images incredibly with holography, other albums can sound too forward and almost fatiguing. Soundstage is also not nearly as wide and large as the Audionet, with more of the imaging happening between the speakers vs disappearing beyond
Again, I’m attributing any shortcomings to it not being broken in… from what I’ve read and heard from others, it takes quite a while I can break in. My plan is to keep spinning records using thus stage for the next 2-3 weeks and switch back to the Audionet at the end of the month for an initial comparison.