Tekton Double Impacts

David,
I referenced listener taste/preference because it’s an unavoidable factor in that people "do"hear and interpret differently.
1. Clean and neutral to one listener is dry and analytical to another 2. Full bodied and tonally/harmonically rich to one listener is gratuitous and colored to another.

People do have notable differences in perception even when sitting side by side listening to the exact same system. I’ve had this type of experience. I am not suggesting my interpretation was the correct one, just that someone else heard something quite different from what I heard. It happens.
Charles

Charles, I get that and I understood what both you and Tom were communicating. Your most recent response makes that even clearer in the brilliant way you (and only a few others) are able to. And I fully accept your findings and results with the MZ2. 

I also believe that both of you are reasonable listeners and have reasonable assessments. Therefore 'anemic' (used as an example, since it was brought up) is likely anemic. I don't see how a component can somehow 'change it's spots' for lack of a better phrase. 

I'm trying to understand 'anemic' in this context...in other words, it wasn't something that was subtly better or preferred or marginally 'less' in some way or manner.

My base-line for this is that differences in quality components exist, but are not drastic. Perhaps I need to re-assess that base-line?

Hi David,
I don’t believe that any "baseline" adjustment is in order for you. Admittedly the High End vocabulary isn’t precise nor universal. This is further exacerbated when attempting communication via a forum format. Tom chose anemic and I immediately knew what he meant to convey.

Anemic in this sonic context means less full bodied sound, not preserving the innate natural tonal colors and harmonic richness. In other words something is stripped away resulting in a "lite" lower calorie alternative. Or less arthoritative dynamics (less powerful or forceful) presentation relatively speaking. Summarized, less meat on the bone and less of a flesh and blood (visceral) presence.

Again I recognize this is quite different from what Teajay has experienced in his own excellent reviewer’s system. To be very clear the MZ2 was not "bad"sounding, just however a "lite" rendition compared to Tom’s and my Line Stages. Our lite/anemic is another man’s "just right" neutral balance. Actually I don't mean to speak for Tom or put words in his mouth. He is more than capable of expressing himself. 
Charles

Just to clarify the MZ sounded amazing with my Aric KT 120 amp. It was full of life, energy, speed and dynamics. For some reason when paired with Aric's 300B it lacked all of those qualites and sounded anemic to me. Your description of anemic matched what I was trying to convey Charles. I thought it was the amp at first and was quite disappointed. Aric suggested that I connect the 300B directly to my DAC and sure enough the 300B came back to life. When Aric's linestage arrived a few days later it sounded glorious with the 300B

You're right Charles, I had forgotten about how lifeless the MZ sounded in your system and that's exactly how it sounded with my 300B. Maybe it's an impedence mismatch? By itself or with my KT 120 I though the MZ sounded great yet with both our 300B's not so much. Synergy plays a big role in a systems sound as shown here. 

As to David's point that this anemic sound I referred to is more than just a personal preference, I would agree with that. To me it's both a matter of a real drop off in sound and what ones preference in sound is. The lack of energy, life, sparkling highs and dynamics was real but I'm sure there are some that might prefer that. I'm certainly not one that would though!

This is yet another example of how frustrating this hobby can be. Wouldn't it be so much easier if components always played nice with one another? 🔉😃🔉
Tom

It is worth noting as well that brother teajay did look to a power amp that added "meat" to the MZ2's "bones".