Have you changed your mind about a brand? Was it you, or them?

I never had much of an impression of Rega, and when I tried a headphone amp I was severely disappointed. The Project I ended up with was nearly an identical circuit, but with a far better power supply filtration. One cost $90, the other $300.

Steve - give the NAIM Atom a listen :-)

@tomic601 - I have no doubt the Atom sounds good - most NAIM gear sounds great. Dynamic, detailed, neutral etc...

But due to their design "direction" with their amps
- i.e. having to replace the power supply capacitors after 10-12 years
- I’ll never buy another Naim product ever again - it left a BAD Taste.

BTW - 10-12 years is not just a "recommendation" as in...
- "it will keep working but might not sound as good" type of recommendation - noooooo
- My NAIT 5i stopped working completely - KAPUT !

So after 10 years I was left with a couple of options
- a boat anchor (but I don’t have a boat)
- or pay the $430 CDN to have it fixed

So after I had it fixed, I sold it for $650 CDN - that’s a whole $220 back on my original investment of $1700 after 10 years. What a BARGAIN - I THINK NOT

BTW - Naim also tells you to leave the gear powered on 24/7
- well I did that - look how well that turned out.:-(

I would recommend all NAIM owners TURN OFF your Naim gear after every session. You might just get 12 years out of your NAIM gear.

AND what's with the NAIM power-on thump? - almost every other amp out there has "soft start" circuitry which DOES NOT impair performance. Naim are just too lazy to include it - it's part of their "brand identifiers" - a very bad part.

There is no longer any reason to get hooked on NAIM
- it used to be one of the most dynamic amps out there
- but things change and there are always new companies snapping at your heals in the hifi game.

There is a huge selection of gear than can compete with NAIM these days.
e.g. Bryston
- sounds better than my NAIM and comes with a 20 year warranty
- yes, that's a 20 year WARRANTY, not a "recommendation"
- and they live by it and will fix it if it should fail.

As said above - NAIM is living on past glories - they really should wake up and smell the coffee !

BTW - I’m not bitter - but I am a whole lot wiser (and poorer)  :-)

Regards - Steve

Steve - yowsa, your experience would have me in same place. I have a lore hate relationship with my Unitiserve and so far ( 3 years ) a love relationship with the Atom. Best wishes to you kind sir!

I was reading some of the other posts and just remembered my foray into Tube Gear...

I frequented a store that actively promoted Raysonic - and I "admired" a very nice SP120.

At the time, I was using a Yamaha 5.1 receiver in my audio system, so the Raysonic was a welcome upgrade in tonal quality and LOOKS!.

Ah - the warm glow of those tubes was hard to resist and the polished silver/gold case - it looked the part as well.

Fast forward 6 months and I purchased the first set of replacement tubes.

After SIX MONTHS ? is that all I get out of a set of $400 tubes ?

So I google'd Raysonic - to keep a long story short - I had to have the entire thing reconditioned, to take care of a shortcomings in the transformer and some key design flaws in the circuit design
- ca-ching $300
- AND another set of tubes -$400

Needless to say Raysonic is now OFF my Christmas list

So I went back to solid state.

But - I have come to realize not all tube gear is created equal. :-)

Cheers