Amps I Like

Lavardin  ISx Reference integrated amp. Beautiful with Wayne Piquet fully rebuilt Quad ESL 57s.

Ayre amps provide a lush dark backdrop which I've heard in no other amplifier. I don't mean they are dark sounding (i.e. reduced treble) but that the sound seems to emanate from absolute nothingness and explode without boundaries. An effect I've not heard in any other amplifier.

That is my experience, also. With a good speaker, there is a boundless sound that is intoxicating.
I also like ARC. I guess I need to hear Atmasphere!

My dear departed ARC D79B along with Cary 805s I loved.

Now using 2 Pass Aleph III with stacked Quad 57s and
Benchmark (bridged) with Harbeth 40.1’s

Been around Hi-Fi since 1956 - Dynaco MkIII mono then.

Nord Hypex NC1200 with switch able OP-AMPS: How do you switch the opamps yourself? Solder or plug-in?

Dennis

While I do not subscribe to any debate of what kind of amplifier or speaker is the one true faith and all others are infidels, I have my personal favorite, but I enjoy hearing other. I will never forget Listener Magazine, which I miss terribly along with "Dr Gizmo" (I hope he really had a PhD.), publishing a letter by someone disagreeing on some circuit design scolding, "He is not an  audiophile."
If anybody doubts my tolerance for others' preferences for solid state, push-pull, or any other type of amplifier they are welcome to check with a Geiger counter to verify that I have no Tzar Bombas on my property ready to use to force everybody to copy my choice of amplifiers ans speakers.
But back to my personal favorite, the SET is my favorite, but my favorite speaker design is the magnetic planar with quasi ribbons (true ribbons are too delicate and stretch if they are exposed to a slight wind) for their simplicity circumventing the enormous challenges of cone speakers, their uneven inductive reactance at different frequencies which are effected by back EMF vs mechanical properties of the surround and cone material, elaborate crossover circuits, and the kind of bracing the box requires to prevent the box from adding noise. But the usual SET is not powerful enough to drive insensitive planar magnetic speakers so an 833-A and a Hammond 1642SE output transformer is not that hard or expensive to make your own. You can drive the grid with a headphone amplifier with several hundred ohms transformer output impedance with zero grid bias, i.e. grid through transformer output winding to ground and 1000 Volts to the 833-A anode.
Purists prefer the SET to sensitive horn speakers and I have no doubt this too produces a wonderful sound. Such purists compare those who use radio station transmitter tube with insensitive speakers to the Vikings, but most folks in the United States have Viking ancestors anyway.