Atma-Sphere M60 or David Berning ZH270?

Bluebull,

Sure, I may write a paragraph or two for my initial impression after receiving the amp. Thanks for your input.

Mhu,

Congratulation and have fun for your new adventure. I've never thought about buying Joule Electra product simply because their OTL amps just too expensive for me. The price of Berning is already outside my initial budget limit. In fact I was initially looking for Atma-Sphere M60 in mid $3k and almost bought a pair but cancelled order because of my concerns listed above. Same reason (cost, heat and kids) for me not considering Israel's highly recommended Canary CA339 and DeHavilland GM 70 (both in $7k) though they may match my SE perfectly. I assume you have heard Joule with your Merlin at your home. If you do, how does it perform specifically in terms of music reproduction? The Joule’s OTL do looks gorgeous in comparison to either AS or Berning. I think if I own a Joule, I may concentrate too much on "visual pleasure" and be distracted from listening music - the potential penalty one has to pay (just kidding...).

Please share your impression of your new amp after you get it.

Laoyuap
Thanks, I'm looking forward to getting the Berning. Concerning the Joule, I haven't had a chance to audition it at home. But, I have heard it on several occasions at shows and it sounds wonderful. Music is reproduced accurately across the frequencies and the midrange is simply magical. I lack the vocabulary to describe all the the aspects of the amp, but coupled with the Merlins, it has a certain liveliness and presence that is spookily real.
The Joules are beautiful, eye candy, drool-inducing gears. They are also out of my price range, but after hearing and seeing them, I was willing to wait and save up. Come buying time, I began to call up the distributors and after numerous phone calls and discussions, realized that I simply don't have the space, patience, and time to take full advantage of the amp. That was when I began looking at other alternatives, and the Berning amp began shining like the holy grail over the horizon. After several exchanges with Bobby P., Allan Baghan, and Audiogon members, I ordered one. I have actually never heard the Berning, but there are people of whose opinions and experiences I have come to trust, and all the tell-tale signs point to the Berning.
I will be running it direct to an APL Denon 3910 (also on order.) I will post my impressions, but it will probably take several months for everything to break in (Between work and grad school, it's tough to find time.) Keep in touch, and congratulations! I would love to hear your impressions after you've gotten your Berning.

Laouap,
I have heard the Berning on Super SE's and you won't be dissapointed. I am running the Berning with Totals and am very pleased with the sound. Power and reliability are not a concern. At med feedback with volume at 12oclock I am in the 100db range. I am a previous M60II.2 owner and even though the Atma's are nice amps the Berning has more to offer in all the ways described in this thread. In my experiance the Berning is more powerful, reliable, much quieter, has better deeper bass, and sounds more live. I feel the Berning does 110% of what the M60's can do. The other nice thing about the Berning is it runs warm not hot. I can put my hand on top of the Berning and leave it there as apposed to actually burning myself on the output tubes of the Atma-sphere. In my opinion you made the right choice and you will be happy with it for many years.

Take care.

Laoyuap, It has been some time since your Berning ZH270 purchase and the start of this thread... well how is this compo of amps and Coincident Super Eclipse Speakers? My curiosity is due to the fact that I am running Atma-Sphere MA-1 MK2.3 Silver editions with Coincident Total Eclipse. I enjoy them immensely and have never heard the Berning amps to draw a reference. Cheers!

Since this thread has been revived, I will offer that I've recently received back from Atma-Sphere my updated MA-2s bringing them to the most current factory spec. The improvements Ralph has rendered since the MkII.2 series was introduced are simply astonishing!

Since many of the changes in the circuits apply to all of the amps in the Atma-Sphere line, what I'm hearing in my system leads me to believe that any comparisons of earlier production runs of any of the Atma-Sphere amps (i.e., prior to the end of 2004) simply don't reflect the full capability of a current production Atma-Sphere amp. From what I've gleaned in talking with Ralph, more improvements were slipstreamed into production at the end of 2004. So, even if the amp has the current MkII.3 model designation or was updated to MkII.3 status, if the update was done prior to the end of 2004, there were still some significant improvements slipstreamed into production towards the end of 2004.

Those of you who have Atma-Sphere amps and have not yet made the most recent updates, you're in for a real treat if you do it. And for those of you who've listened to Atma-Sphere amps in the past, if you liked some of what you've heard, there's much more to like today. I'll post some further observations in another thread when I have the time to pull my thoughts together on this.

(Note to those who don't like manufacturers continually upgrading their designs: please consider that we are talking about "boutique" designers/crafts people at this level of the high end of the audio art. Ralph and others like him are highly creative individual artisans constantly seeking to improve what they are delivering to the public. For me, I'm pleased and grateful that they engage in this continual creative process.)