I have an original Athena and Andromeda from when James Bongiorno ran the company. After he left later versions may not have been as good! Sumo closed long before James died!
Jim's Sumo Preamp was the Electra... Rich May did some tweaking and the called it the Electra Plus, Rich May then did the Athena. Jason Stoddard tweaked the Athena and that was the Athena II. James did the Andromeda... bipolar outputs. Rich May did the Andromeda II with Mosfet outputs and Jason Stoddard did the Andromeda III with Mosfet outputs... Jim would not use Mosfets in an output stage.
Rich May did the Polaris amp version 1. There were two more after that but I like the first one better. Had it for 25 yrs and had transistors replaced twice. But it was worth it. A really good amp. Rich run quite a high bias on those mosfets in the Polaris. Might be why it sounded so good and I had to replace them a couple of times.
Yep, Rich Did Polaris and Jason did Polaris II and III. I've listened to the Polaris many times, I sold that piece, It had a slight coloration that was pleasant. I've not sat in front of the Jason's Polaris models. I've been told that the III is quite good.
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