Cary in bed with Stereophile?????

I haven't listened to any of the equipment in your list but it may just be a matter of mismatch with your speakers. The Cary 300SEI is a "lowly" 12w/ch amp and the specs on your 4 ohm Audio Physic Virgos calls for 15w to 150w of power. I'd say the Cary was below the low end power recommendation for your speakers. And we all know that low power tube amps need to be carefully matched with appropriate speakers, right?

Here's a personal experience I had with the popular Conrad-Johnson Premier 11a 70w/ch tube amp.... not a low power SE design. I listed to this CJ amp 6 years ago at a dealer in CA. It sounded constrained like it had a sheet over the sound and the bass was almost missing. After that experience I told myself these audiophile people are nuts for paying so much for tube junk.

6 years later I find myself auditioning another CJ Premier 11a in Colorado in a dealer showroom. They have it driving a rather large pair of Avalon speakers, don't recall the model. Same observation on my part, the CJ tube amp sounded lifeless, slow, sloppy bass, although it did have a bit of that midrange warmth. I couldn't believe anyone would buy this junk. But this time I suspected something was not right with the dealer setup. I took the CJ tube amp home and auditioned it in my system on a pair of smallish Thiel CS 1.5 speakers. It sounds awesome! Very open and transparent, smooth, lively, good bass, and no "sheet" over the sound.

My point... System component matching is extremely important with tube amps and don't trust the "expertise" of your dealer even if they seem very knowledgable. I now own a CJ Premier 11a and couldn't be happier!

mythtrip: if stereophile were in bed with all of its advertisers, it would need a least a half-dozen men on its payroll with the stamina of the late wilt chamberlin. -cfb

Tell it like it is Cornfed!

Reviewers keep their jobs by being excited and turned-on by the things they are asked to review. Could you imagine a music reviewer, for example, who actually told the TRUTH about 80% of the rock and pop music that comes out these days? Needless to say, that reviewer would be out on his tail, with the editor saying, "Why should we hire someone as a music reviewer who doesn't like music?"

Same with hi-fi reviewers. They are paid not to review, but to enthuse and like if at ALL possible. Someone who is too critical, too blase about iterations of products or design ideas that yield too little value for the buck, or someone who only raves about the rare genuine "great" product, I would guess they are often seen as too downbeat, too negative-minded.

I never trust the reviewers, or rather, I take them with a grain of salt. But since when would any of us "trust" someone who has a money-trail, however indirect, leading back to the manufacturer and industry itself?

I must say, this is why a dealer can NEVER be replaced. Because a dealer (a good one) of course tries to give advice and such, but they also just simply let you listen, and that after all is worth more than any amount of dubious ink in industry rags.

pcanis