Charles,
Good question. To be honest, no, there's nothing I miss about the Manley Mahis. At least with my associated equipment, I feel that the Kit 1 betters the Manley's in every way. The Kit 1 is much quieter – it is dead silent even if I turn the volume control all the way up to maximum. Instrumental tone and timbre is miles ahead. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was listening to a Joni Mitchell Greatest Hits CD last week and the sound of her voice and the tone of some of the acoustic guitar work was startlingly real.)
As the amp continues to settle in, I have found that low-end response is, surprisingly, at least as good as my old push-pull gear, maybe even a little better. On "Another World," from Joe Jackson's "Night and Day" LP, the big kettle drum whacks have a body to them that I never heard before. Similarly, a few nights ago I was listening to one of my favorite songs from Paul Simon's "So Beautiful or So What" CD. The track "Rewrite," features all sorts of exotic string instruments and percussion, including hits on some kind of very deep sounding talking drum. The energy and authority on those drum hits completely took me by surprise. I think I must have been grinning!
The Kit 1 also has that wonderful ability to present the music as an organic whole, while still giving each component of the music is due without smearing. So, well recorded background vocals sound clean and pure and you can appreciate them both as a unified, harmonic entity while at the same time hearing each voice as its own musical element.
I will give you all one further example.
I own a single Diana Krall CD. I'm not a big fan of hers (no offense to those of you who are) but I bought her CD "When I Look in Your Eyes" a few years ago because I knew that she is an audiophile favorite and wanted to see what the fuss was about.
I can certainly understand why the audiophile crowd loves her. Apart from the quality of the performances (say what you will) the sonics are immaculate.
Anyway, on the opening cut of that CD, "Let's Face the Music and Dance," there is some beautiful (schmaltzy) orchestration that always sounded very pretty on my old amplifiers. But when I listened to that track last night for the very first time on the Kit 1, I was astounded by the presentation. Startlingly, the background went from sounding like "orchestration" to sounding like An Orchestra playing in an auditorium behind the speakers. Now, remember, I have a small, cluttered and fairly acoustically compromised listening room, but I NEVER thought I'd hear music like this in my own home.
So, yeah, you could say I'm happy. ;-)
