Thanks everyone, I forgot to follow this discussion so I apologize for the delays in replying.
@klh007 I ordered it with the HDMI board for my Nvidia Shield which I use for various Video related endpoints for Plex and Kodi. I didn’t bother with the premium analog board because I have no analog sources. Honestly, I could make do with a stripped down network only version that has no digital audio inputs or analog audio inputs if they made one that way since I run Roon and the Lyngdorf already supports RoonReady through the network board. The prices quoted were the same as @uberwaltz mentioned earlier.
TLDR; The Lyngdorf had better be a sonic Svengali because it has some very stiff competition.
I am currently auditioning the NAD Reference M22 Rev2 and I have a pair of Nord One-Up SE Ncore Monoblocks arriving tomorrow to compare sound quality against.
I am hopeful that the Lyngdorf competes and surpasses them all sonically (including my SET, but I am realistic in this regard), but I will say the NAD Ref M22 Rev2 is very very good, but it required some judicious manual Room EQ to get it to sound that way because initially it was busy sounding and congested in the upper midrange at louder volume levels. It’s really quite nice sounding now after my buddy Mike team viewered into my roon endpoint and we took measurements and tweaked the EQ settings in the Reaper DAW software using FabFilter ProQ2 VST plugins (I use various audio plugins to tweak the sound to my liking).
I could see myself possibly keeping the Lyngdorf just for room correction and as a Roon endpoint if it doesn’t beat the NAD or Nords or my SET in sound quality, but that’s an expensive proposition so the room correction/roon-endpoint convenience and sound quality improvement will have to outweigh any sonic differences between amplifiers in that case.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe theoretically I can bi-amp my forthcoming Ulfberhts with my current Diavolo SET tube amplifier on the top-end and the Lyngdorf on the bottom-end? I have no idea if this would be warranted, desirable, or even worth trying for possibly the best of both worlds, but I fear they might not coalesce properly. I tend to think that mixing SETs with Solid-State (even class D) would be akin to heresy in some circles and even I would say it may very well be an abortion of sonic proportions.
The versatility and simplicity of the Lyngdorf truly makes it the swiss army knife of components as @aniwolfe mentioned on the phone yesterday with me.
What’s truly amazing to me is that in the best case scenario the Lyngdorf could potentially replace my DAC, my passively cooled and dedicated ROON endpoint, my SET amp, and hopefully best the competing class D amps I am also comparing it to.
I feel kind of sorry for the Lyngdorf, it’s almost not fair to expect it to outperform everything, but unfortunately it’s going to have to pull a rabbit out of it’s hat sonically and amaze me or I’ll not likely keep it in my system. I won’t expect the SET like midrange, but it better do everything else so well that I forget about magic midranges.