Consonance Cyber 800/845 Valve amps; how good?

Thanks Grant, much respect to you as well!!!

I know this may be the minority opinion in audiophilia, but I somehow I just cannot feel the soul of the music unless it's played at realistic levels. I could never buy a Ferrari or Boss 429 and drive it 35 mph, and unlike many an audiophile, I can't sit down an listen at 75 dB. A lot of my prejudice is born out by the Fletcher-Munson Curve and the perils of chasing flat frequency response, I guess. Yes, me and The Doctor routinely go well beyond 100 dB - I rebroke in my Coincidents at 120 dB over a significant amount of time with my 60 wpc AtmaSpheres - didn't really seem loud to me.

Only problem with that is it doesn't take much 100dB+ to start damaging your hearing...

Right, Paul. However, some of us feel that music at 100 dB+ is not damaging. Being around live musical instruments is VERY loud. Stand 8' from a trumpet, and it is most definitely not audiophile approved volumes. Yet, the sound is not irritating because it is far more natural and organic. The same is true of a great many instruments.

Distortion, machinery, noise, etc. certainly is damaging. One must be extremely careful in this regard. We agree here.

No argument. Nobody knows at what levels sound is damaging and certainly it varies by individual and the nature of the noise. Bad hifi can be very fatiguing well below 90dB as we all know and it *feels* like it's doing damage!!

I've suffered just a little bit of heaing loss from live music and headphone listening in my younger days and so am very careful these days. OSHA says 90dB is safe 8 hours/day (other disagree) and even they say 100dB is Ok at least a couple hours/day (I think). Time of exposure is the other factor.

Happy listening.

Trelja,
I own the Consonance 12 watt 2A3 powered integrated you heard...mine is stock too....I'm constantly amazed at what the amp can do regardless of price and it was real inexpensive!!! Replaced a big name american amp with the Consonance that cost only one third of the american amp.
Larry