any hear dared or ming da amps?

Bottomline: spend your money wisely.

Chang- It seems the author of this thread doesnt know much about these amps.
In the case of Dared,I posted to let him know the Dared preamp is an over achiever.
I thought that would at least be of interest to him, as my findings may reflect upon the sound qualities of Dared amps as well.
You mention my old preamp and solid state in the same sentence.The preamp is a tube based preamp.Read my post again.
You wrote "since we are not talking about preamp,we can have this discussion elsewhere"
Why dont we let the author of this thread decide that?

Maxx-Although I have never heard your East Sound player I have read wonderful things about it.
It was on my short list of players I have been researching lately.
I ended up with a Xindak SCD-2.
This player caused the biggest sonic improvement to my system I have ever experienced.
I had high expectations for this player,but I can honestly say.This player far exceeds the expectaions I had.
It STOMPS a similarly priced 'brand name' SACD/CD player I borrowed for a time recently.
BTW the 'brand name' was a Stereophile class A in the last rec.component issue.
Its too bad some of these Chinese products cant make it into Stereophile.
I feel they are a real threat to US products.

Glad to hear it David! I know some of the early Xindak's had problems reading certain discs. But they went to work on it and have corrected the problem. Not unusual, the earlier model Eastsound CD-5 had a few bugs they had to work out.

Yes, although the Eastsound isn't tubed like the Xindak, a importer borrowed mine for a few days to see what all the hype was about. He had a Jolida and Shengya tube player and was really suprised when he learned the Eastsound employed no tubes.

I had the same experience. Many posts seem to indicate a good CDP upgrade won't give near the sonic improvements as a amp upgrade. I wasn't sure what to expect when I upgraded from a Cambridge Audio CDP. Well worth the effort and I can say it also exceeded my highest expectations.

BW Maxx

thanks for all the discourse, guys.

Amen to the reliability issues!Purchased a pair of 805 monos from Audioguy (china)- a big mistake! The left tube went dead before I even had a chance to hear them!Ordered new tubes from California because I did not want to wait,and the next night the right amp died altogether!My local tech is very knowledgable (a tremendous asset if you are going to take a chance on these)and got them working 100% within a couple of weeks.Basically just faulty resistors.In the mean time the factory exchanged the bad tube for the wrong one! (no top plate connector).The dealer didn't care,and sold me out for a lousy tube.Ordered a MC-767 phono from another Chinese concern and had much better luck-120 hr. burn in and excellent customer service! As far as the sound- wonderful! I have used these amps with Quad ESL -63s,Altec Valencia horns,and Merlin VSM Ms all with great results. These are an outstanding value if you are willing to take a chance on them,but they are not for the timid!