response to the earlier post. i was also considering pass xa25 (according to reviews it gives neutral tuby sound) but i think made a correct decision because this amp would not drive well my thiel cs6 speakers. i am very staisfied with megaschino so far. perhaps, the overall performance might further be improved by replacing the nuprime hpa 9 with one of the preamps from my list, though i have no idea of how much it might really be improved. pha 9 is not bad and the cost of the replacement would be very considerable. both, pass labs and conrad johnson recommend to leave their stuff on all the time, which i do not do in my current settings.