Guido, you are right about using the phone, at least as far as D-Sonic goes. When I was still researching replacements for my blown atma-spheres in the class D world, he always answered the phone himself and seems pretty cocky about his products. I think his relationship with Revel provides him with very broad range of speaker quality samples to use in his designs, but I think he doesn't know himself just how good his little amps can sound in a full-blown music-centered STEREO system set up with full attention to cables, platforms, footers and the rest of the tweaks commonplace among audiophiles.
His entry into 2-channel audio follows almost a cult following in the world of HT system owners who were dreaming about high-powered but clean-sounding amps to power ever more sophisticated speakers. His early ice amps were good enough to gain him a reputation within that community as evidenced by the 40+ pages of debate on his "official" page on AVSforum,com, starting in 2007, and only occasional references here at audiogon and the other sundry audio blogs. That balance changed with the publication in 6moons of Glen Wagenknecht's glowing review of his monster 1500w(8ohm) amp's ability to deliver the sonic goods in his very serious 2-channel system. Further evidence to support my claim that Mr. Deacon doesn't really get what a good thing he has wrought can be seen early in the review when he is interviewed by the author. Mr. Deacon came off as a bit miffed that his chosen powercords could be bettered by the reviewer, possibly leading to a better review, Mr. Deacon is adamant that these are not throwaways and believes that the purchaser will not require an upgrade. To quote, "these are high-quality hospital grade product sourced from Interpower and not inexpensive." Fortunately, the reviewer persevered and set them up as an audiophile would, otherwise, the review he wrote may not have been sufficient to bait the hook I bit when I ordered my M2-600 pair shortly thereafter.
One bit of personal learning experience I had with these amps was to discover just how good they can be made to sound when given care in placement and cabling. Despite weighing only about 10 lbs, they truly came to life for me when experimenting with crude isolation platforms thrown together using small oak shelves and leftover footers and cork/rubber blocks. This discovery spurred a project where I ended up putting similar 3-level platforms under every single component and power supply. These amps made it obvious that platforms and footers, used properly, result in superior sound to the listener.
My advice to the original poster is to go ahead and call r. deacon; he will probably answer the phone right away, but don't be too surprised if he doesn't talk the usual audiophile talk. His products walk the audiophile walk.
