What's the best EL84 amp?

@bdp24 Beat me to it :)

@pinthrift We're around to fix the Music Reference amps but will no longer touch them if they have been modified or have had unauthorized parts used in them. The latter would include after market "boutique" fuses.

For the record Roger updated the fuse specs to 250 mA ceramic (not glass) fuses from the original 160 mA spec. We have them here or you can get them from reputable sources online such as Mouser or DigiKey. Roger's preferred fuses were made by the Littelfuse company.

@bdp24 Well, my best friend has a personally upgraded RM-9 and I have EAR 890s (with an SR purple fuse sitting on SR MiGSx footers) and our systems maintain a very similar in sound character-resolution, tonal balance, dynamics, bass, rhythm (despite the very different speakers VS35 Export vs Legacy Focus, respectively).  Apparently both RM and EAR products have design as their primary features with sales as an adjunct (Paravacini was primarily a pro-audio guy who happened to build a big home audio business).  

Exactly @fleschler. Roger and Tim were the only members of a mutual admiration society ;-) .

About ten years ago I entered a room at the hi-fi show held by the airport in Los Angeles, and was surprised to see Tim de Paravicini sitting in a chair, no one around him. I sat down and had a nice conversation with him, during which he told me a lot about tubes. Like Modjeski, he was an expert in the subject, and considered the tube amp designers job to be to maximize the quality of the signal coming out of a tube (or set of them). The loss of both Roger and Tim is a real tragedy for hi-fi music reproduction.

I don’t own an EAR amplifier, but I do own (and love) an 868L pre-amp, best one I’ve ever had.

We attended the same show (I attended LA/Irvine shows for decades) and I also said hello to him but I think it was in 2015-6 (I’ve owned the 864 and 890, 324 and Acute since 2006, sold the Acute and prefer the 864 phono stage to the 324 for a Dynavector 20X2 L). The huge difference in quality in use was installing a Synergistic blue fuse in the 864 and a purple fuse in the 890. I use Stillpoint SS Ultra footers under the 864 and SR MigSx under the 890.

I don’t know if after what I have done to modify and tremendously improve the 864 is as good, less good or better than the 912 which I contemplate(d) purchasing. I guess I need to hear a 912 with a SR fuse to determine that (your 868L is a 912 line stage). Do you live in the LA/Orange/Ventura County area?