For 2-3 years, our system sounded great sometimes, less so at others. I continued to change amps, cables, tubes--you name it--to try and find the configuration that would sound good all of the time. We stumbled upon the realization that in order to cover the gamut of our music collection, as well as fit our schedule/listening requirements, we had to have two things:
1) an amplifier we could leave on all of the time, so as not to wait for it to warm up, or run the risk of a fire if we left home with the amp on; and
2) an amplifier with enough power to make the most dynamic music come across with a sense of ease, as opposed to straining to pressurize the room with the sonic heft of the bass & drums.
We figured we would try out a McIntosh amp because we'd heard they mated well with our speakers (modified Klipschorns). Lo and behold, the amp took the tweaker out of me. For the past six months, outside of adding the ability to use a hard drive as the source, I haven't changed a thing in the system. And it sounds good on every piece of music, every day, and every TIME of day. I can leave it on all the time, making it easy to flip the mute switch and immediately have music at the ready. I don't know what the recipe is for someone else, but this combination works for us, as these past six months we've spent all of our 'audio money' on CDs.
Our system does not have the sense of realism that tube amps provide (although the Lamm tubed preamp does help to deliver the texture and emotional energy in the music), but it is engaging on a much more satisfying level than it was before. We plan to eventually get another pair of SET amps, but they will be for those special, attentive listening sessions, or for those times when we care to interrupt the zen of satisfaction with an ardent session of analysis. :-)
