Innersound ESL amplifier - good choice?

Thanks everyone,
I welcome all comments negative or posative as I feel like I can learn from both.
Asa,
your comment about the subtlely threadbare quality is exactly the sort of thing I am concerned about with a solid state amp (after 20 years of listening mostly to tubes). Also it is a quality my stereo has a little of right now and I am running Nordost Blue Heaven cables. I think they may well be the culprit, but they have other nice qualities at this price and I have been trying to live with them.
I have decided to trust any magazine much in the same way I trust people in general, sometimes you run across the bad egg but it is my way, of course my ears (not painted on by the way) are what I trust and not many sway me beyond them.
Tom
I am considering your advice as well, Plinius is consistently recommended by all.

well, let me put it this way...the Innersound pre and Innersound amp replaced a tube pre and a tube amp in my system...i'm using Innersound Isis speakers and i don't have any problems with the highs or with the lows...everything sounds just fine to me...when i used Nordost speaker cables the sound was lifeless...fortunately i changed to Innersound speaker cables (cheaper than the Nordost) and i'm in audio heaven since....Plinius is a good amp as well, but performance/price ratio is higher with the Innersound amp...

Hello-again. The Innersound is a good amp.The problem is that it is missing the intimacy of the Plinius or even the Symphonic line of amps,IMO.I heard a demo between the Innersounds {Inner-tube vs. ESL amp} and the difference was amazing. Their tube amp blew away the ESL amp. Same manufacturer,different designer.Had you considered a CJ EV 2000 amp-200w/ch bulldog with a heart of gold. Good luck!

I agree that the Innersound was not as intimate as the Odyssey amp, but I was able to hear more ambience and detail with the Innersound. The Odyssey amp OTOH, would compress the soundstage (at higher volume), and lacked the effortless, uncompressed dynamics of the Innersound. I'll be getting my Magnum Rogue 99 back in about a week or two and I hope it will soften the Innersound amp down a bit. I've never heard the Plinius amp and sure it is nice, but I was able to buy the Innersound at a good price and took that into consideration along with the great customer service from Roger Sanders. I'm also in the process of looking into treating my room, due to the uneven dimensions.

1. One does not need absolute trust, i.e prostating like an acolyte, to read between the lines of an audio magazine. Trusting a mag much like you would approach a person is a good analogy. For example, you should always do an analysis that correlates how many full-page color ads a new manufacturer is running with the exuberance of a review and temper your own tendancy towards needing "absolute" truth accordingly.

2. Haven't heard the Innersound on the small maggies, but an opinion offered based on experience with another electrostat is valid, which is why I offered it.

3. Saying that any opinion can be discarded because each opinion involves unique experience and referent points is to deny any opinion - this is called radical subjectivism and it is an inauthentic argument because: it would deny all opinion, even yours that claims there can be no opinion. That is called a performative error and reveals the irrationality of that position. Some opinions are more true than others within their given contexts. All human knowledge is built upon this pretext and the denial of the pretext on radical subjective grounds is itself, in its very use, a confirmation of that same pretext. You see what I mean?

I would be very surprised if the Innersound sounded much better in another similarly sophisticated system (TNT/Graham,Supratek Syrah pre, Joule LA200 pre, SE Triodes, ESP spkrs, Electraglide PC's, NBS Pro IC's, Audionote KSL spkr wire). On a lesser sytem, yes, you may not heard what I did - but with some time I think you would anyway "IMHO".

Just a note: the box that the Innersound came in was shipped from Coda Technologies in Calif. Now, do any of you remember what a Coda amp sounded like? Hmmm, now there's something to chew on...