Garfish, I see by you responding to my follow up so quickly that the last thing on your mind is listening to music.. My System is down right now, waiting for parts for an upgrade.. I, nor do I Imagine Skull from the kind of equipment he states he's had in his listening room, have 30 yr. old tube systems. In fact my turntable alone costs as much as the entire buget for the system Fusilli has inquired about.. I to have played guitar for years.. I am amazed that someone who knows the sound of a guitar so well, with all of the wonderful overtones and harmonics it's strings produce could be blind to the fact that digital does not reproduce them.. There is no emotion, feeling or involvement. I'm afraid I must respectfully say you are deludeing yourself. It's not your fault. that you have become lost.. But I strongly suggest you get setup with some analog soon. I think once you get back into real Hi fi you will see the light. Don't you realize that with analog your listening to a copy of what actually happened? like a negitive that has been made into a print. then if you wish.. a copy made from that. No matter how far down the chain, you're looking at a copy of what actually happened. With digital the chain is broken. Once it's coverted to digital, the original sound is lost! When you listen to analog,you listen to a copy of what was there, like looking at a photo.. with digital it's not a photo it's a painting, and the artist is a Computer.. It's an aproximation of what the computer figures was there.. There no life.. everything sounds fake and metalic. People who play instruments, and anyone I demonstrate this to can hear this when I compare a first issue record to a digital reproduction. Even when I listen to very expensive drives and D to A's that don't sound offensive. I never get involved. I think to myself, "gee I really gotta clean out that closet".. When I listed to records I'm gone! I forget everything.. And the next thing I know the record is over. And the bump,bump,bump brings me back to hear and now. That's what it's about Garfish. This passion of ours is about perfection, or as close as we can get to it. Why limit yourself to a medium that is decidedly inferior? I don't think that transistors are so bad by the way. They are just not as good as tubes.. Come on Garfish you don't seem like a bad guy.. I'm pulling for you. Let's show the audiophiles up and coming, like the people that Fusilli is recomending a system for, what good hi-fi is all about.. So they are happy and stick with us. We need them... The Snoop.