Atmasphere; I owned the ZERO gold ic and sp's. They were ok. I was never really thrilled with them. You spend that kind of $'s, even second hand, you should be ecstatic. I never noticed the improvement you speak of. I am not saying it did not exsist. They are very well made, as they should be, but very very stiff. Tough to install and feel comfortable with their instalation. Of couarse this is all secondary. It is the preformance that matters the most. Getting back to what I believe the original point of this post, SS and Tube. No simple answer, but prior to my exsisting system I had Krell evo 202 and Evo 600's. I still had the Zero's which were only change recently. The krell which I had for 2yrs were shipped the day before the Vtl arrived. So not side by side but pretty close. Many of the attributes are very close. Bottom end, mids and high's very simalar. The main differance to me is bloom. A wider sound with a slightly differant(deeper wider) stage. I will say the biggest change from any replacement of equipment in my 2 channel anolog setup was the cartridge(the source). An immediate(instant) change. In my case for the BETTER! The largest bang for the buck. At least in my system. Of course, it was the last change as well, so that may have something to do with it. But much more noticable then cables, amps or pre-amp at this level anyway. Having said that, I love my tub set up, down sides and all.
