Integrated for TAD ME1: Luxman, Accuphase or Soulnote?

Next time I am in Denver I am going to audition the SoulNote line. I am introducing by their offering. Heart of hearts I am a tube guy though. 

I’m coming from Mastersound and Tubes, and acoustic plan, so yes, a little warm “fatty” sound is preferable, but founding myself lately enjoying airy and open sound.

TAD are almost revealing but non fatiguing, and an Accu can fit phono card inside, so less boxes&cables… hard decision!

Perhaps TAD need power, E-800 sounds good and for a Class A is quite powerful… decision, decisions!

I had the TAD ME-1 as my top choices for my office system. I demoed it with Luxman gear, C900u and m900u. It sounded great. I was a little annoyed when TAD dropped the price by $5k and then raised it again by $5k a few months later (it was not a sale). A great sounding speaker.

At one time I owned the new KRELL k-300i integrated amp (the XD variant). I think that the KRELL sounded a lot like the Luxman. Super smooth and never fatiguing, which would go nicely with the BE driver of the TAD.

It is 90 watts of Class A using thier iBias system. I upgraded to a KRELL Duo 175 XD amp (same design as the k-300i) and I loved that amp. That one had 175 watts of Class A, a shame I sold it. That amp was definitely in the Class of the Luxman m9000u.

It appears that the TADs are a challenging load. I think they will eat up the Luxman 590AXII. I tried to power a pair of KEF Ref1 Metas with the integrated, which was a disaster. I certainly don't want to see you make the same mistake I did!

I have the Soulnote E-2 phonostage. The MC output is mediocre - I'm using the other two inputs as MM with SUT and sounds fantastic.  Moved from the ARC Ref 2SE due to subsonic issues and the E-2 has a filter.  My only complaint is that MC loadings for the US version is only 3, 6, 12, 24, 40 and 100 ohms.