Switched from well known Amp to Odyssey

I have not switched to odyssey, but rather added a pair of stratos monos to the krell ksa50s and arc vt130se stereo amps which I own. I rotate these amps among various loudspeakers. With the deep bass limited and slightly overdamped Merlin VSM SE, the krell and the arc both outperform the stratos, at least to my taste.

With the verity parsifal encore, I clearly prefer the odyssey to the arc and marginally prefer it to the krell. While it is the most obviously solid state sounding of the amps I own (most powerful deep bass response, leanest in the mid-bass, with very slight dryness through the treble) the stratos mates terrifically with the very slightly underdamped verity speakers. As usual, careful component matching is the key. More unusual, is the odyssey value proposition, which is awfully tough to beat, even if you're relatively price insensitive.

P.S. - I would direct you to the recent odyssey review in TAS, which I found unusual in that it very closely mirrors my own experience with the product (other than explicitly identifying the rather startling deep bass capability of the stratos, which - to be fair - may be unique to the monos and not applicable to the stereo unit under consideration in that review)

Does anybody know if a pair of Odyssey Stratos amps, when configured for mono, are running fully balanced? Not having just XLR inputs, but fully balanced designs I mean. Thanks in advance.

Chris

Sheadlee, which Audio Research amps have you compared them to? I have heard the Stratos because I recommended them to a neighbor who did not have alot to spend. For the money they have no rival but I respectfiully disagree that they blow away any of the ARC tube amps. Have you compared them to any of the VT series amps? If so which ones? I personally have listened to the VT100MkII and MKiii and the VT200 and while the stratos are great for the price they are simply IMHO, not in the same league.

Thorty40, go to the odysseyaudio.com site and get the phone #. Klause is very easy to talk to and will answer all of your questions.

Chris,

Inputs are all SE (including the XLRs) and so are the outputs. Klaus told me adding the balanced stuff adds considerable more circuitry and complexity to the amplifier.