What's the best EL84 amp?

The joules were incredible. I had them for many years but passed them on to a new home after I bought a VZN-80 and found it just as satisfying in my system as the rites but in a smaller (and cooler) package. My main speakers are quintessence prototype and they are extremely efficient. I’m currently powering them with a first watt SIT-3, which I find to be a smooth, detailed, quiet and addictive small amp, much like the RM-10. The little class A pass amp sounds exceptional driving the quintessence.

Enjoy your RM-10. They are very special. I will never sell mine.

Nor will I @car123. Or my RM-9 and RM-200, for that matter ;-) . Brooks Berdan had a fairly wealthy clientele, and he was more than happy to sell them VTL and Jadis amps (cha-ching ;-). But he recommended the Music Reference amps to his clients who wanted not just great sound, but great value as well.

Music Reference owners tend to keep their amps a long time; buyers of many other brands seem to always be looking for something better, constantly changing in hopes of finding whatever it is they are looking for. Roger Modjeski was a musician, and his priorities in reproduced sound closely aligned with mine. As did his taste in music.

Roger felt that the electrostatic loudspeaker design was the over-all best reproducer of recorded music. He was a longtime QUAD ESL owner, and used that speaker as his load in the development of the RM-10. His last product was his own ESL, with his own woofer design for 100Hz and below. He advised me to use symmetrical 24dB/octave filters with my QUAD ESL/sub setup.

Interesting! I had a SIT-3 with my current setup and it just didn’t surpass the Sun Audio 300B and its 9 WPC. I really wanted it to work. Maybe I gave up too soon?

I miss Brooks more than anyone I’ve ever know in audio. What a gentle-man. I’ll never forget the day he gave me the key to the museum to have a look around.

I couldn’t agree more @dhcod. Brooks was also an automobile enthusiast, and had a nice little stable of ’em. Riding with him in his souped up Mercedes Benz to Vegas for the CES was an experience I’ll never forget!

In his younger days (high school) Brooks played drums, and when the band I assembled to play at his 50th birthday party (at the behest of his wife Sheila), he got up on my set and played "Wipe Out" with the band. Happiest I ever saw him! I feel like part of me died with him.

I think the SIT-3 needs a very particular type of speaker to work well, that being high efficiency but low impedance.  My quintessence are low to mid 90db efficient with a 4 ohm nominal load.  I also have a pass x 150.8 but it never leaves class A with my speakers and the SIT-3 is ever so slightly sweeter.  I'll list the 150.8 for sale soon....