Kora Mercury Integrated amplifier, is it worth?


Hi, I noticed that there was very little info on this amp. For the limited info I read, it was not very favourable. Does anyone have any experience? If you choose between Cary SLI-80 F1, Kora Mercury, Jadis Orchestra ref, Musical fidelity Trivista, which one would you choose? They are in similar price range. The Kora amp seems the cheapest of these amps.
dungn
I have a Kora Flash, which is essentially a lower power version of the Mercury and without a remote. IMHO, all of the amps you mention are great, although I personally feel that the Cary SLI-80 is not in the league of the others that you mention.

I absolutely love the Kora sound - I have owned a lot of gear and listened to even more, and somehow the Koras just seem to have a really nice balance of resolution and clarity, yet remain coherent and very musical, and just natural sounding in general. I have heard better/bigger soundstaging with other gear, but the layering/image placement and image density/image definition with the Koras are phenomenal.

On that note, my general experience with Kora (and I have had exposure to a lot of their products) is that they can be a bit fussy. The designs are unconventional. And they have nearly nonexistent US presence (currently), so if you need help and do not speak French then things become difficult very quickly.
I have read great things about the sound of the Kora, and years ago, I heard one playing in a room over small monitors at the Stereophile show in NYC, and I was truly impressed with the beautiful sound. The reservation that I would have is the same that I would have with the Jadis, which is that I have heard that the bias is very difficult or impossible for the average user to access and adjust safely. Maybe other members can chime in with info on this subject.