Creek 5350SE vs Rega Mira 3

Knownothing, what were the flaws with the Arcam?
I think Arcam uses a chip amp so would not expect deep, punchy bass and I do not think it would do well with a 4 ohm/tough load speaker like the 805's. Could that have been the problem?

"I listened to the Solo carefully with some B&W 705 and 805 speakers, and it could drive the 705 all right, but its flaws started to show with the more revealing 805s"

Cdc,

That was about 1.5 years ago so I have to reconstruct what I heard as best I can remember. I remember was listening to "the great audio experience" disk with various artists - many hifi shops have this well recorded mostly jazz compilation CD.

The 705's sounded slightly louder (89db sensitivity vs 88db for the 805S) and smoother through the Solo, more musical to my ear. With the Solo, the 805S tweeters sounded hollow in comparison, noticeably grainier and the overall presentation from top to bottom was thin sounding and overly analytical. Whether it is the chip amp, or the overall package (source + amp), the Solo just couldn't get the 805S's "up on plane" like the large Classe amp and source available in the same store that could have been used for demo but wasn't. The poor salesman was trying to convince me that the 805S was $1000 better than the 705. I know the 805S is a better speaker, but it wasn't in that set up.

I like the Solo for what it is, an elegant and quality built low to mid-fi all-in-one desktop stereo system. Get some good $500-$1000 stand mounts and you are in business. The B&W speakers I would choose for this system are actually the 685. The 705 sounded better than fine with the Solo, but that is as high up the line as I would bother to go.

Thanks, your description sounds accurate.