The imperfect amp: Pass or Ayre?

Ralph a tour de force post and recognition of the true scientist engineers that also LISTEN

Eric two points of clarification; Yes the relative distortion levels between components is massive, especially when comparing transducers to gain devices. AND look at the Ayre QSB DAC white paper for a Phd in filters that measure well but sound worse...hence the measure/listen switch, 

Wolf - harshing the mellow love it....what low distortion strings are ya using on the eight thousand dollar wonder ?

@earthtones  Welcome to the unfair advantage of Vandersteen powered bass and finally an amplifier PURPOSE designed to exploit that advantage. The M7- HPA replaced the Ayre in my system, not a fair fight for a lot of reasons. yes Vandersteen had very specific goals to hit for odd order harmonic distortion in the M7 and M5. Really a towering achievement IMO and little understood : just 5 parts in audio signal path, liquid cooling for bias set point and device stability, no emiter resistors, analog temp control ( no RF trash near audio ), built in HRS suspended truss isolation, 128 V DBS....cyclotronic circuit....the list goes on, but of. course the music and the listening are the gig....

@tomic601 , 
How I envy you...

I hate to sidetrack, and, I probably should just PM you, but I'm here...
You mentioned you had both a non-Twenty and Twenty version of an Ayre amp. Could you describe the differences between the two versions?
I keep wondering if I should upgrade.
Bob

I use Elixer Nanoweb lights.