My first attempt at posting this didn't go over well with Audiogon. Here's another go at it...
I'm looking for a beautiful integrated amp with plenty of power (at least a 100 per side). It needs to have luscious mids, a tight bottom and spacious highs. I prefer an autoformer-based volume control like the one in
ASL's Flora, but I might be able to live with a potentiometer-based volume control if this is a deal breaker. It has to have a remote. I'm done with this primitive act of getting out of my chair to change the volume. I also need a nice phono stage in there too. I don't want to be too picky, but something along the lines of a K&K, Boulder, LAMM, Aesthetix. Is there a unit with a nice analog sounding cd/dvd player in there too?
You see, I've had it with the cancer that's spreading in my living room. It started with separates, then spawned into monoblocks, then morphed into biamping with garden hose PCs and ICs and eye sores everywhere. It looks like a rats nest back there. When I started looking at DACs, it dawned on me there's no end to the madness. I don't want to audition any more cables, vintage 12AX7 or 6NS7. I just want all the parts to be designed elegantly in a beautiful container with silver wire quietly doing it's magic inside.
And my girlfriend keeps asking why I have four extra pairs of speakers in my closets. I tried to tell her that I was comparing them, but she looked puzzled with that answer. And the tweaking. Oh my god. My living room looks like a garage with soldering guns, screw drivers, capacitors and wire scattered everywhere. Thank god for dinner parties that force me to clean up once in a while.
Does anyone else share my feeling of being on an irrational journey that consumes so much time, energy and money? When does it end? Why do I need all this stuff? I remember when I had a Yamaha receiver a few years ago and everything was so simple -- one power cord and a cd player. Man, those were the days! It might not have been the best sounding rig, but it wasn't bad. Where did I go wrong?
