tubes and analog

I agree that Raul's integrity should not be held in question based on this misinterpretation or misunderstanding or whatever it was.

Raul is as honest as a person can get. This doesn't necessarily mean that he always speaks using rosy words. He just described what he saw from his own perspective, as we have witnessed blown tubes in the middle of a presentation more than once. As Sbank said, one can't draw conclusions about a component's reliability if the design is not in its original form (fuses in this case).

Regards

While it isn't clear as to whether or not Raul knew or was made aware that the Atma gear was pre-owned, calling the attempted listening session an "audition" certainly was a bit inaccurate. When I think of an audition, listening to a dealer's properly setup/functioning equipment comes to mind.

It sounds like having Ralph go through those "repaired" and/or altered amps would be a good idea as well!

>>Raul is as honest as a person can get.<<

Aren't you his business partner?

I enjoyed the tube/ss debate being conducted by manufacturers I admire. However, I disdained the reliability attack hurled at a specific product. It was a cheap shot, in what was formerly a lively debate.

As a consumer, I find it unreasonable and irresponsible to air a product’s malfunction publicly; unless of course, all private efforts with the producer have failed to resolve the issue. I would have assumed that a neophyte manufacture trying to peddle his wares would be even more reticent to launch a reliability salvo at another manufacture’s product.

I’m sure none of the product purveyors in this thread intend to market anything but robust designs, and if the inevitable problem arises, they will stand behind their products and step up and resolve the issue.

Using a specific product malfunction as an argument against the technologies being discussed was inappropriate, made exponentially worse, when the reason for the failure was revealed.

Judging a specific product’s inherent design qualities by using a one-off occurrence of dubious derivation was unwarranted and unworthy of the tone of the discussion up to that point!

Was the veracity of one party less than the other’s? At the time not really! But honesty and accuracy are two different sides of the same coin.

The point remains that the coin should have never been thrown! Sure, one could argue that the coin was thrown to defend a design philosophy and was done in the heat of the moment etc. However, those are excuses for poor taste and for a quick finger on the submit button; both of which are antonymic to the thoughtfulness and the logic I would assume to exist in a designer and manufacturer of the product levels being discussed.