Anybody ever hear an H-CAT amp or preamp????

...about two years ago at a meeting of NJ Audio Society...the guy that makes them brought them in for a demo...i don't remember anything exciting about them except that were a little overpriced...ah, and one more thing, the Doppler-free mambo-jumbo sounds a little bit off...the live performance of an orchestra has plenty of Doppler effects...why would i wanna listen to a recorded piece that takes the "life" away from music?...but, this is just my humble opinion...there are better preamps and amps for the money...

I too was at that meeting, but on the first day (it was a two day demo, to allow more members to hear the system), when there were still some cabling and break-in problems. The amp sounded quite ordinary for a while, although towards the end of the demo as it warmed up it started sounding much better and gave me a glimpse of what the fuss might be about. My friend Iasi's point on overpriced bears to a large extent, I think, on our seeing the innards of the amp and the plain-jane appearance of the thing--it sure looks like they should charge a lot less. It would interest me to hear it vs. the Halcros, which also claim to eliminate distortion (hell, it could save a lot of potential Halcro owners a lot of space and money!); however, as a confirmed tube guy, I don't know if I really want to have a distortionless amp or preamp. A friend of mine with excellent ears swears by the H-CAT equipment, but her description is that it is like plugging your source dirctly into the amplifier, with none of the drawbacks of passive preamps. As I've stated in other threads, I don't think I really want that for my listening pleasure (I prefer the way my Jadis colors the sound, quite frankly), but I'm curious enough about the piece to possibly borrow at least the preamp and hear it in my system.

Bummer Dolphin. Just when you (think) you're immune to the hyperbole, the reviewers kick it up a notch and they suck you back in.
I'm not just saying you, happens to me too.