I read this on another site


The OP said that he put together a 2nd system consisting of Nola Boxer speakers and a current NAD intergrated amp that cost 500.00. He said his first system consisted of Wilson Sasha speakers and a ARC ref-5 and a Ref-75. He claims as an experiment he hooked up the NAD amp to the Sasha's. He said in some ways the NAD sounded better than the ARC combination. I have never tried this experiment myself but I am really curious to try it.  Has anyone hear ever tried an experiment like this before? 

taters
I noticed that when I got the phono card for my Rowland Capri - two credit sized cards instead of a phono stage the same size as the Capri...
My BEL 1001 MK5 only makes an impression when in use, otherwise easy to overlook.  The rack mount version, pretty plain looking. 
Consider that for a great deal of equipment, the single most important xpensive part is the case itself. 

Ever see a "full size" component then see the interior and notice hat 1/2 or more of the inside is empty space? 

We (I) need to stop listening to gear with our eyes . Cannot tell you how many times i look at a piece of gear in the rags and think wow  that must sound great . Only by its appearance and price point do I come to that conclusion. Then i have to tell myself that it means nothing . If a plain black box was used it will sound exactly the same .

Matter of fact- yes!

way back I had an amp- big, expensive, premier brand, that died, but fortunately, it was under warranty. Shipped it off for repairs.

while waiting for my amp back I took an unused NAD receiver I had (712?) and used it as an amp. I was shocked at how good the NAD sounded in that context. 
I think the NAD 526BEE is a really good piece. 
I bet we'd all be surprised on the small differences in electronics and digital if we gave ourselves the chance and left our audiophileness at the door. 
I have tried similar a few times, and each time I was initially surprised by how good the low cost/high value gear was, but after a while I was eager to get the good stuff back in...
Looking at the measurements for the Sasha here,

http://www.stereophile.com/content/wilson-audio-sasha-wp-loudspeaker-measurements

I'm thinking the Sasha is not a very tube friendly speaker and better suited for SS. Now if he were to try a very high quality SS, he might just give up tubes on those speakers.
For a short time, just to see how the NAD would drive my Esoteric MG10s, I replaced my Jolida Fusion/BEL 1001MK5 pre/amp combo with the NAD 526 BEE ($550 retail) and was impressed with how it performed.

Room is ~15x12.