Red Wine, Patek, Audio Zone and Atma Sphere

Another SS you should consider, though you would have to buy it used is First Watt (Pass) Aleph J or the F4 model. Can't say you will like it better than your Atma-Spheres, but I find them very, very enjoyable with my Merlins and my other amp is a CAT JL2 - so in that company the Aleph J is formidable given the price (used 1,600-1,800)and given an efficient and benign speaker impedance - mostly over 8ohms and linear.

I'm running them with my advantgard duo. do you think that the red wine 30 would work better than atma 60?

I've had an Atmashpere S-30 for a short while. Really like their OTL sound. I still have a Red Wine Sig 30, actually the Omega version which is the 30 wrapped in wood. Have not heard the others you mention. The 30 is the one for me. I especially like the fact that it is battery operated and I'm off the grid. My taste for amplification has been in the SET camp for the last 2 years and the 30 is very close to that. I think ultimately, besides personal taste, it comes down to the amp/speaker interface. Some speakers like some amps more than others. Good luck.

Gmood1 nailed it- I own the Pateks, and everything he descibes is true- the most pure-sounding; grainless solid state amps I have owned/heard. I run them as balanced monoblocks with a fuly balanced tube preamp, which I feel they need to bring out their best qualities. As for comparisons? The 'usual' qualitative differences b/w tube and ss will always be there, however after a string of equally enjoyable tube amps over the years, it has been nice to find a SS solution that I can actually live with (for a while anyways!)- good luck.

The Patek nor the AZ Amp are digital amplifiers. You've lost me Acresverde? Maybe you should listen first.

Stick with what you've got. The others, to me, would be a step backward. Why digitize unnecessarily?

Never heard your amplifiers..better probably isn't the right word. Different yes..the Patek isn't a Solid State made to sound like a tubed amplifier, but it does portray some attributes of a good tubed amplifier... Although it isn't a bloomy unit either.

It is very transparent with solid bass and life like highs..none of those over the top stringent grainy highs. Most of all it is EXTREMELY quiet..no humming or hissing with this little guy. There are only 9 components in the signal path of this amplifier..I'm guessing this is the key to its extreme transparency. CONs..It must be used with a benign impedance load. No 4 ohm loads or mating with speakers that have phase angles like the Rocky Mountains.

yours are classics