I see you've got the preamp I'm intending to buy at some stage in nearer future. and I'm intending to mate it with a AM Audio A40 Reference S2 power amp. It costs 2850 Euro + shipping from Italy (they seem not to have any dealer network so the further away from Europe you live the more it'll hurt to have it shipped). so what those 2850 Euro get you?
1. 40W pc into 8 Ohms in pure class A (and that nearly doubles into 4 Ohms and 2 Ohms - feat that only the most stable amps can pull). additionaly this amp is very dynamic which means it can double it's power for short bursts. this is very important quality sice most of the time the amp will not output more than 1 W pc and any additional power is needed for those brief dynamic moments in large scale music. being able to be as dymnamic means the power supply was not compromised.
2. vanishingly low THD at typical listening levels (around 1W output) and gently rising twards rated output power (0.6% THD @ 40W). and also onset of clipping is much less dramatic, which resembles that of a tube amp.
3. even THD levels vs. frequency.
4. the above 2 points mean THD has much more natural behavior. what most typically happens is you get high distortion at low power levels and lowering distortion with rising power and then distortion is sharply rising after the onset of clipping.
5. no global negative feedback which means what THD you can see on the test bench you'll experience listening to music. NFB is a good principle but you must have super fast amp circuitry otherwise the NFB network won't keep up to compare input to output hence won't work correctly. in reality only the amps with the most simple circuitry can benefit from NFB (mostly tube amps).
6. very wide frequency response which means no problems with shrill treble. thanks to high slewing rate there will never be problems with high frequency inter-modulation distortion and high frequency transient saturation - a.k.a. smooth listening.
I don't know how techy you are but all that I just written means you get exceptionally performing amp which will translate into exceptional sound it will create. measure well and sounds poor, no such rule would apply in case of this amp. or any other amps from that bran for that matter.
if you know Italian you can read those two reviews:
http://www.amaudio.it/eng/a40-a6-audioreview237.pdf (even if you don't know Italian at all, like myself, you could take a look at this review to check the graphs, if you can read them)
http://www.amaudio.it/eng/a40references2-audioreview259.pdf
or if you don't know Italian there's a review of a slightly larger brother
A-50 Reference on TNT magazine which should be equally useful. in the end the only difference between them is the output power. the smaller one is in no way compromised compared to the bigger brothers. hope this would help you make a decision.
BTW when I'll be buying an amp from AM Audio (and this will be a fact at some stage because I can't see myself finding a better performing amp utilising similar design philosophy which I personally consider to be the right one for designing audio gear) I will be buying blind too. but I won't have any fear in doing so. there's simply no way there can be a mistake choosing this amp.
BTW2 could you share some impressions on using the Music First preamp? and can you describe differences between Octave DAC and Qute (I must admit I'm very intrigued by Metrum's DAC design philosophy as well as Chord's)? Thanks in advance.
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