Amps that don’t impersonate space heaters.

ADG monoblocks sound very good for the money and produce little heat… and come in a carrying case and look like tubes to boot. I’ve had them in my system. 

My take on slam is that it is one of the first and easiest attributes of a high end system to detect. It is the very abrupt wave of bass high energy from, say a kick drum on a recording. But in general it is not real. It is typically an artifact of high power solid state amps and often is accompanied by a leaness in the adjacent midbass or midrange, making it stand out more… a very fast rise and fall time. The difference for me was simply striking when I went from a Pass x350 to an Audio Research Reference160 amp. The bass sounded astonishing real and nuanced, like what I heard in a concert… a wave of bass that washed over you, extended in time and nuanced, instead of a single quick thump that disappeared quickly. So, no, I don’t hear slam in the real world and at least for me, I was incredibly happy to trade it for a much more realistic and nuanced sound.