thanks again for the great responses. all these units have interest for me, would it be nice? ...o well...can't ...linn entered my mind early since i have owned the genki when it first came out by linn, eastern electric is new to me, but the tubes i love, quad is something that i have had a opportunity to listen to since my cayin dealer i bought my demo int. amp from is a quad dealer and the musical fidelity i have owned the 3.5 in the past...and the shannling is something that has sparked my intersted due to the excellent work of cayin, alot of interesting things coming from china, my buddy bought a ming da int tube amp,he loves it with upgraded tubes and the build quality on some of the chinese stuff is excellent. i have been around this stuff along time, marantz in the 50s, advents in the 60s, ads 70s, linn in the 80s , cary in the 90s even krell and now cayin. it will be interesting since i don't keep stuff now very long, say a year, then on somewhere at least one piece. last year it was vanderstein 2ce sig. then now totem speakers,so fun fun fun...they all have their merits and it is now down to shannling,quad,eastern electric since i have owned linn and musical fidelity and love to change manufactueres. thanks for all the input....anyone owning the three i mentioned, would like input if you have owned or listend. the quad is nice too since it has input for computer generated stuff, not there yet but maybe who knows, now i am all about sacd and cd, no longer lp due to overall a to b problems and i love analoque output..thanks dwhitt