Modern Linestages

On the amp front, the best sounding SS I have ever heard were some the Pass Aleph 3/2 and the J - all very simple in physical terms of parts and circuit - but always driving easy and sensitive speaker loads. Driving a tough speaker may require more complexity to deal with the load and necessary gain - it does seem his mantra is get the job done as simply as possible; which of course requires some serious design skills to execute - why haiku can be so difficult to do well -- simplicity is difficult.

Pubul 57,
Nelson Pass is an excellent exampe of a proven brilliant designer who devotes much thought and energy toward developing great designs as simply as reasonably possible. His newest First Watt SIT amplifier is a further advance along that path.

Grannyring I don`t question the quality of your system,I know there are complex components that sound very good. It just seems that talented designers who use their creativity and resources get better results following the simplicity path as opposed to the complex,multi-part,mutiple stages approach.

Charles1dad,

Did not mean to imply my system was all that .... Really just pointing out my experiences and I sure wish I could have another listening room with an equally well thought out "simple" system with SET tube amps. I have a place in my heart for them.

Charles1dad, regarding your examples- I don't know about all of them but I know about some and those are good examples.

Thank you Grannyring for your post on 8-27 where you go through some of the cost of running a company and developing upper end products.

Our Purity Audio Design linestage was reviewed in that same Absolute Sound issue as the Constellation pieces. While this was not an inexpensive linestage, we have other models above this.

We have spent the last several years developing this line and this kind of R&D is not even close to being cheap. Overhead of running such a company is is not small and you still have to pay the bills even during the R&D stages.

Bottom line is that it is still a business. The price of products is based on many things (not only the cost of parts used) and since you did such a good job of going through most of them in your post, it will save space in this post.

I still don't understand those who do not think companies should make any profit. I'm sure they don't go to work everyday and work for free.