Synergy - Mix and Match - Solid State of Mind

Stehno, that was exactly what I was getting at "decaying prematurely", you put it best. I didn't do a good job of explaining, but you knew exactly what I was talking about. I have been visiting smcaudio a lot recently and feel that their upgrade paths seem well thought out...

Also, what kind of characteristics am I looking for in a speaker...From the replies so far, it seem that the McCormack wouldn't be that nice with overly "bright" speakers...

The speakers I've picked, immediately tell you I'm looking for midrange performance... The FS-688 is a terrific speaker , FS-788 retains the younger sibling's midrange performance but adds some bass...The Dulcet came highly recommended, but I doubt show me what the amp can do..The Cliffhanger may be outdated, but I like little speakers that sound big...I like the JMlab Mini Utopia as well, which I forgot to include. The Caravelle's I am still learning about, to be honest. So, out of the ones I mentioned, what would be the ideal companion for a DNA...

Cagliostro, if others are telling you that the McCormack wouldn't be that nice with overly "bright" speakers..., then perhaps they are confusing the DNA- Revision amps with the DNA off-the-shelf amps.

With a Revision A or better DNA-2 amp, you should not need to concern yourself with overly bright speakers.

-IMO

I am now entering the final stage of my decision making. The Cliffhanger comes from a company that seems to be out of business. I think it is rare now, and will be like a Dodo in the future. I'm impressed with it's form and function, it likes power and likes solid state, has a ribbon tweeter and substantial bass.

I was really considering the Focus Audios because even though they don't go so low, they just do things that speakers costing several times as much can't match. Things that bookshelf speakers are known for. But the bass on the Bulldogs makes it more versatile and big sound from a small speakers seems to be exactly what the doctor ordered. Right now, it's a toss up between a Bulldog and JM Lab Mini Utopia. The bulldog has lower sensitivity than the Mini Utopia but has a minimum impedance of 6 as opposed to 4 on the Minis. While this may make the Bulldogs hard to drive, I read somewhere that the Clayton likes to work with 4-ohm speakers. The S-40 has been raved about and is something I would like to try at some stage. But, while sounding warm and tubey, the Clayton doesn't seem to have some other sonic attributes that I admire and so I have decided to go with the McCormack. The system now has two components taken care of, now I just need to work on complenting the power and speakers with cables and source components. I definitely need tubes somewhere, but I don't know if I should go with an Aesthetix Callisto pre or just bypass the pre altogether and use a CD player w/ tube output stage and volume control.

I thank you all for your help, I was hoping some BAT owners would speak out because I initially wanted an amp-preamp combo from the same manufacturer and I have admired BAT for a long time. I was discouraged by talk of the house sound being described as "dark" even though I've looked at their design philosophy and given two thumbs up...no negative feedback, dual mono, just 2 gain stages...a clean signal path...a while ago that seemed like a no-brainer to me but these last few days I've been spending hours drooling at the McCormack upgradse site, smcaudio.com, seems like in the case that I am not satisfied I will have a lot of options available through upgrading that will fix whatever I'm not happy about. Whether it's matching the Amp's input sensitivity woth other components or tweaking the sonic characteristics...

This process has been so time-consuming and I've glad to have reached the end of it, for now. Now I just need to worry about the source. With cables I think just resort to trial and error.

Cagliostro, I don't know which BAT amp you're considering, but I used to own a BAT VK-500 with BATPAK. That was about 4 amps ago.

As for the speakers, if per chance you were to purchase a DNA-2 Revision A, you owe it to yourself to purchase full-range speakers. With the right cable, you may be in for quite a shock what deep, tight, well-defined bass really sounds like and what it does to the entire presentation as a whole.

-IMO

Stehno, I can't afford the shipping on full-range speakers :( I wish I could audition the BAT's, but I can't. Initially, I felt that since I could not have big speakers, I'd just settle for small ones, and focus on the strengths of small speakers. I decided to go for "big sound in a small box" type speakers.

Stehno how was your experienced with the BAT, I'm sure the monster was very well behaved...:)