Cary 805s or Atma Sphere M60s?

Thank you for your responses I can audition the amps at the sales location, but not in my listening room, where typically components sound better. Autoformers are not "transformers" in the denotative sense; you can read up on them at the "anti-cables" website. Anyway, the OTL design seems to make better sense in theory. As silly as it sounds, it's going to be hard to beat the sound of those Carys. Of course I once thought of that with my first tube amps; Golden Tube Audio SE-40 monoblocks back in the 80's!

I picked up an S30 listed here on Audiogon. I chickened out and kept my 805AE instead of selling to fund an expensive pair of Atmasphere monos. I have a small listening room, and my listening is mostly direct energy from my speakers. My listening triangle is a bit less than seven feet in all directions. I have to say that little S30 is phenomenal! Sound stage is very large, airy, detailed, with precision and three dimensional life size presentation; plus the amp is only a model 2 version, that was well taken care of. Russian power tubes, however a mix of vintage 6SN7 drivers....nothing fancy. I am a believer in the OTL amplifier. In comparison to my humble system, I can't imagine what the rest of you folks enjoy with you wonderfully elaborate systems. By the way, you all may cringe at this, but I am completely Anti-cable equipped including XLR interconnects, speaker cables and autoformers. I am impressed. These new cables have satisfactorily replaced my Nordost Red Dawns and Audio Zen interconnects. Comments?

The Cary's are a high-calorie sweet dessert with a focused sound stage. They do lose air around the instruments with more complex pieces of music. They are great for listening to jazz, vocals, acoustics, and the like. The Atma Sphere has a very broad spectrum sound stage, with a velvety black background, contrasted with timbre and detail with strings, chimes, and other types of percussion. Bass also has color, texture and warmth along with visceral punch I have never experienced before. Music is absolutely "real sounding" The instruments and vocals become life-size even with the small listening dimensions I am limited too. I am tempted to sell the Cary's however both have attributes I enjoy. In the end however, the Atma Sphere is the amplifier I prefer; clean, realistic with the soul of tubes.