Any SS class A experience to share?

It's hard to go wrong with tubes Dudley! Looking forward to your post burn-in evaluation!

Viggen; Alan Yun should be easy to reach and I've found him to be very responsive. Your original comments on the similarity of the SR17 to the SR11 strikes me as something that might have been in the SR11 review on the Silverline site the compares the SR11 to the SR15. Regardless, if you are interested in researching the SR17 I still have my list of URL's for reviews for the SR17 from my own research:

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/masz07.htm
http://www.soundstagelive.com/cgi-bin/recaudiohard.pl?read=20
http://www.audioreview.com/PRD_120554_1594crx.aspx
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/messages/82753.html
http://www.silverlineaudio.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=37

As to the Aleph question, I take heresay with a healthy grain of salt, and a big-ass bag of salt if someone is trying to sell me something. That's not to say the folks you spoke to are necessarily off-base. I'd guess you probably agree, with all the buying/selling and testing gear in your own space with your own ears that you've done recently. If you can afford the time and expense of doing that kind of extensive auditioning, there is no better way to evaluate a component than that IMO!

I don't know why you would find it hard to believe that the SR17 and SR11 have more similarities than dissimilarities.

This conversation falls under the category of "slippery slope."

Well, perhaps I'm not communicating as clearly as I could. I certainly believe that these two monitor speakers made by the same manufacturer may be similar in some ways, and in this case, the designer being Alan Yun, I'd guess that we have two outstanding products for their price point. But for me to believe that the two speakers in question actually performed similarly overall, I would have to believe Alan Yun to be a poor businessman, and I don't believe that to be the case. The one monitor is almost twice the price of the other. If I were to give you another example that puts the conversation in an different arena: I'm no big fan of cars myself, and prefer to move around on two wheels whenever possible, but for the sake of our slippery slope, let me use cars. Volkswagen makes a Passat with a 4-cylinder and with a more powerful 6-cylinder engine. Yes, I would guess that both versions of the Passat had many similarities. I would also guess that, given the choice, I would rather drive the 6-cylinder version every time. It's not to say the 4 is not a good choice...I'd just prefer the extra performance. Now for me to try to believe that Volkswagen would try to market those two cars at vastly different price points (and in the case of the cars it is closer than the speakers), and not have the more expensive vehicle offer something that they believe most folks who had the choice would pay the extra money for, I'd have to think that Volkswagen was off it's rocker! To compare the performance of the 4-cylinder with the 6-cylinder would not be a fare comparison, and that was the original point I was tryng to make about the two monitors.

I think beyond that, that we'll have to have this conversation again once the two of us hear both monitors side-by-side and make and can form a more informed opinion based upon direct experience.

...till then...