I am glad to see these last few posts, I was scratching my head at the other posts as I was not finding the negatives they were at all, in fact just the opposite.
As I stated, I am using a "cheapo" amp while waiting for my new one. This is a Heath amp that I paid $200 for about 10 years ago and later sold to a buddy of mine, who is not into audio, and I bought a Forte Model 6 which clearly bettered the Heath; I later replaced the Forte with a Meridian 557 which really put a whoppin' on the Forte, especially in bass; I later went with the ML 383.
I said all that to give you an idea of what I have the Hovland mated with. When I had my wife sit down and listen with me for her comments, her first was that it seemed I had more bass than before, and this using an amp that I don't feel is bass heavy. I had a Mac C42 hooked up for a short time and the Hovland has better bass.
I really liked and still do like the 383 I owned, it was a wonderful unit, but I have better performance with this setup even w/o my new amp. I find the dynamics better than I have ever had as well as imaging; coming to this conclusion using a TDK test CD.
It has extremely quite background; I have the disc Fourplay - Yes please..., on track 7, I believe, I had to replay the beginning 3 times as I heard a "crackling" in the left channel I has never heard before in the many times I played it. I thought it was a problem at first. The more I use it, the more I am amazed.
My serial number is 1165, I would be curious of where this falls in.
