Oh yes sorry, price compatible. Yes I'd maybe agree. Although the 8 2 dac (not old 8xp) with qx dac card and a psx-r2 power supply is a very good combo. But maybe not same price.
Intimate I think is lots of detail and dynamics and layering, which cyrus does extremely well at signature level. It's also very natural because the more lifelike and detailed the more real it is. So long as you don't have to much edginess and raspiness, like with digital recordings and when you get lispiness on female vocals. But I don't get that much, only with bad Recordings. Making it warm in the mid range like if you go for naim pre and power stuff at say £5k worth of kit, which I've heard with my speakers, takes this detail away making it less lifelike, more smoothed out, and it seems to give the impression of less dynamics in the mids because of this bass smoothness. That's why I couldn't get on with the leema. Also the Cyrus and pmc twenty5 match works extremely well and is balanced with cyrus giving an adding kick of detail and dynamics and the pmc's giving decent smoothness anyway. The pmc's are very dynamic already and I hardly hear any combo in shops as dynamic and detailed as my system at the same price. It tends to be too smoothed Rich hi fi with detail removed. Don't really like that sound atvexpense of dynamics and detail. My impression is if you want to get the richness On top of the detail and dynamics I have already you have to spend a lot more. I've heard about £16k of naim stuff with some twenty5 24s which I sat listening to for an hour. It had absolutely everything. Detail, dynamics, smoothness, richness and power.
People often say they don't like a sound, until you go to the top of the range. So I wouldn't like naim stuff around the same price as mine, but go and hear the really top notch naim stuff, it's a different league. It's the same with Cyrus, I'm sure it's more marked with less bass smoothness the cheaper you go. In fact it is. I had a 6dac like that, hence why people say they don't like Cyrus and I probably can't blame them, but with 200 and 300 watt mono power amps in the cyrus signature stuff it's not the same thing at all as you've great amounts of bass thump. I tried my system with some Michell alectos. Huge mono power amps, and bags of power, and not much difference in power and bass.
Id agree with Cambridge audio, they have really good sources but the amps are not much cop. But you tend to get that where the amps in the brand are maxed out at £1700 it seems.