shindo aurieges ....

I have had a few correspondences with Mr. Devore and he definitely loves Shindo but there are other amps that he likes too. I am using shindo apetite with silverbacks and the sound is phenomenal but would be better with some more power. For whatever reason, Shindo seems to be a great fit with Devore speakers.

Mikirob,

I'm not sure if my comments led you to that conclusion, but extreme detail over tone certainly doesn't describe my listening priorities.

The Auriegies is definitely a beautiful piece and I spent many a night seduced by it. Especially when I used to have it paired to my 845 set monos.

That said, some of its lore is hype and there are other pieces with similarly wonderful tone that have greater transparency and pull the listener in without being quite as colored. I like a colored sound for certain listening, but its generally not versatile.

For the record I hate sterile, super transparent audio pile brag rigs.

I demo'd DeVores in 2008 at Sound by Singer with a solid sate amp and a digital source and just didn't understand all the hype. Mind you, I had just demo'd some Sehring speakers and thought the Sehrings were far better for less money. In any case, I thought the DeVores sounded pretty unforgiving with solid state amplification and a digital source. If DeVore voiced his speakers with a warm tube preamp and amp, I would certainly lean towards buying the same amp.

It is very unlikely DeVore gets paid by Shindo (although DeVore started out as a salesperson at Sound by Singer, which is a black mark against him in my book.). I think he just caught on early to the move towards efficient speakers and low powered tube amps, and Shindo has a cult following in that area of audio.

Hi Gopher, no it wasn't your comments per se, but it did spark the thought. I believe my sentiments are similar to yours in most ways/cases. I certainly did'nt want to offend, if I did I apologize.

I have to say that I just don't see the Shindo sound as being "coloured" or "old school". I listen to very little jazz or chamber music or anything of the sort - it's mostly indie rock for me.

I find it hard to describe Shindo as lacking in detail. When I compared Shindo preamp with VTL amp to all Nagra, it was the Nagra that seemed to be smoothing things over - whereas the Shindo/VTL combo really allows you to focus in on details deep into the soundstage. Similarly, I found the Shindo/VTL combo to have better inner detail than an Ayre combo I auditioned as well.

I know this is getting off topic a bit, since I have no experience with the EAR unit - but IMHO, the Shindo sound is a very detailed sound. What the Aurieges lacks compared to its higher-end brethren is a few "layers" of tonality and some frequency extension - making it sound a bit "thin" compared to other Shindo pieces. Keep in mind...that's not "thin" compared to other gear - Shindo seems to specialize in layers of supreme tonality, and the Aurieges just does a bit less of that then their other preamps, so it doesn't sound as thick as they do.