If I'm looking for "Tube Sound", why would I put a Tube Pre in front of a SS amp?

Atmasphere, this account of a reviewer extorting a manufacturer is disturbing. Was this an established reviewer? Was the reviewer aware of your witness? If so, was the reviewer so arrogant not to care?

@unsound  Its funny about that- he knew others were in the room. As far as I know he's not been writing for years now.

@inna I don't agree but I am going purely from personal experience. As I said before, its a topic for another thread.

It all depends. Good sound is a team sport that includes not only all the technology playing together but the room and the listener so its always hard to predict outcomes.

Agreed!

By the way, Ralph, what turntable was in that Atma-Sphere/Classic Auduo/Purist Audio system that I saw on Purist Audio website. I thought that it had no real drive and as a consequence the sound was somewhat boring. Yes, that's youtube, not real auditioning, yet I heard many there and they all sound quite different. The best to my ear - Ypsilon/Lansche/Thales/HB Cables.

Atmasphere, Care to hazard a guess as to whether what you witnessed was genuine and things fell where the would, or perhaps, it was just a dog and pony show, with all actors having already planned their respective exits, were encouraged to do so with a last shot at audio journalism?

@inna , I don't see a video on the Purist site that shows a turntable. I hope you are not taking your evaluations from youtube seriously! From Peter Breuninger, who made the video I found on that site:
"I urge you, If you want your system to sound believable, these guys are some of the first to call."  You can hear him saying that right at the end of the video.

That was at the RMAF sometime in the last two years, in which case the turntable would have been a Kuzma Reference.

@unsound I've got no reason to think that the exchange I saw was not genuine.