Cary 805s or Atma Sphere M60s?

Onemug,
That`s very interesting, of all the maggie threads I`ve read over the years 90% of the owners say these speakers require much power(usally SS amps) to really make them come alive. Your system must sound special with this unique combo.

Goes to show the difference between theory and practice, on paper you would never think the 805s could drive the Maggies optimally, in terms of both power and current to drive the low impedances in the bass region - yet you never know till you try. The 805s must be very special, would love to try them with my tube friendly speakers.

It's a bit dangerous to overgeneralize about OTL sound. The AtmaSpheres sound much different than the Juole-Electras; the J-Es sound very rich, to the point that I htought they were colored. Very unlike the AtmaSpheres, adn very unlike the demo I heard with Cary 805s.

I think of the Joule warmth can be attributed to their very fine, but warm sounding preamp, did the same (added warmth and color) thing when I paired it with the M60s - a signature sound many love, but hey, I like passive preamps, so not the way for me. Hard to say if one will prefer the 805s or the Atma-sphere, different approaches that will appeal to different types of listeners.

Pubul57 I listened to the Joule with a Cat SL1 pre-amp. My impressions were the same as Honest1, very rich to the point of euphonic but not at all in a negative way. I really loved the upper frequency extension and air presented by the Joule. There seem to be variations in the presentation of the different OTL's. Maybe the output tube along with circuit design is contributing to the differences in sound as the Tenor and Joule use the same output tube. My guess is, although I wouldn't put money on it as I only heard the Tenor once in an unfamiliar system, the Joule and Tenor are probably quite similar and the Atma-sphere might be a bit leaner by comparison, just a hunch.