Revel Salon vs Vandersteen 5A

No Docks, I sold all of the lower range stuff to your sister (which she likes real good). You're welcome.

I don't have a sister....

Irvrobinson:

With regard to amplifiers, global feedback is indeed an issue and I ask whether you have heard no global feedback amps like DarTZeel or Ayre (or no-feedback tube designs). Rowland went with a no global feedback design with his new 625 stereo amp and there's a reason for it.

Regarding my VAC monoblocks, top-flight tube amps, with stiff power supplies and high-quality output transformers, basically function like a solid-state amp into a speaker, unless the speaker features wild impedance swings. The Salons do not and in my particular case, they measured basically flat in-room from 40 Hz. to 16 khz.

PS - To me, most digital sounds pretty lifeless.

I think, Raquel, you've been reading too much VAC marketing hype. To read the web sites from VAC, Atmasphere, etc you would think solid state amps have no bass definition, high distortion, that you can't hear acoustic decay or detail, and that it is impossible to create a great amp with feedback in the circuit design. That is all such silliness. I especially like the discussions about higher-order distortion that are at least 80db below the fundamental in solid state amps. I don't care what the tube amp hucksters say.

As for digital recordings all being lifeless, then you must be enamored with less bass, less highs, more noise and higher distortion. I don't see how you argue it any other way. The fact that analog sources and tube amps sound different is that they are *designed* to sound different. Look at the VAC web site - they "voice" their amps.