Spectron Musician III MK.2 or Audio Research DS450

" I would say the late 70's was the golden years of high fidelity. "

I would say yes in terms of market size and # of users, but amps and speakers have come a long way since then. Digital sources as well since their inception in the mid 80's.

Mapman..here's some useless trivia..The first retail CD player came out in early fall of 1982, the Sony CDP-101, followed by the Philips Magnavox players that came out that
November.. CD's started showing up in the stores in fall selling for $ 25.00 a pop. Phew!! However, the very first disc players ever made was in 1980. Pioneer that year bought out a company that invented and made the first laser
disc movie player. Pioneer slapped their badge on the player and were sold under their name. Denon also in 1980, made the worlds first CD player. It was a test player that was for studio use only.

I remember selling a large format video disk player at Radio Shack back in teh 1980 timeframe or so. The only two movies we had to show though were "MASH" and "The Muppet Movie" both of which I know by heart from ongoing store demos.

BTW, I suspect average sound quality for most listeners on various devices including portable is better today than back then, but the frontiers of hi fi/sound quality have moved forward, as has the cost of "high end sound" in many cases, plus also high fidelity is no longer a novelty, rather something that is assumed by most in accordance with their individual expectations, so you just do not hear about it anymore very much outside of audiophile type circles.

Audiozen - I just wanted to make sure I'd understood this correctly: Dennis Deacon said that his new amp series, which I take to be the M2 series, has zero feedback. Zero feedback? If that is correct, that is a very intriguing technical development. There was a review of the M2 in the SixMoons from Sept, written by Glen Wagenknecht. It's a very positive and interesting review, but there is no mention of zero feedback.

BTW, the M2 series retails for a bit less than the W4S, so it's an affordable high-end component. Wagenknecht couldn't make a direct comparison between these two brands but based on memory stated that he thought the M2 had improved treble tonality and warmth.