I'm basically a conservative when it comes to this audiophile stuff - I don't like to spend much, change gear very often, consume a lot of power, or occupy a lot of space. I want to be able to play loudly, but not loud enough to cause audible sympathetic vibration in my listening enviroment. I do not aspire to ever own the "best there is". My concise (so far) amp evolution has been thus: NAD 2200, to Classe Seventy, to Conrad-Johnson MV-55, over a fifteen year period! (And I've kept the same Technics SL1200 turntable/arm over all that time!) Each move, FWIW, was up in price, down in power, and going from SS to tubes - not to mention better in sound. There will be another change soon, probably within the next year, as I am going to be moving to a bigger listening room. It will also be the result of my having slowly but steadily upgraded sources and cabling in the meantime. I am thinking about staying with tubes in the power amp, but with more watts, extension, and transparency, and maybe going back to SS in the pre, or at least in the phono pre. But who knows, the time might be right to give SS another try at the power postition.
