That Transformational piece of Gear We All Wish For

I’d say the only piece I bought that I did not consider transformational was the Cary V12 I bought in the eraly summer of ’01. And the reason I say it was probably not transformational is because I was listening to, at the time, a pair of ARC VTM120s, and those amps were kickass! But they were not very reliable, so the Cary was transformational in those regards, because I am no longer gritting my teeth and crossing my fingers when I flip the switches and I no longer keep my soldering iron with a supply of grid resistors next to the amp. Other than that I’d call the V12 a lateral move. Maybe even a hair down, but I wasn’t admitting to that at the time.

When I bought the ARCs they were an upgrade from a Cary SLA70, and that upgrade was transformational. The Cary SLA70 was an upgrade from JVC multichannel integrated, and that was certainly a transformational upgrade.

I went from a B&K digital pre to a second hand modded Cary SLP90, and I found that to be mind blowingly transformational. A couple or so years ago (the years all run together for me post ’17 or ’18) I bought a preowned (from Cary) SLP05, and that was nearly as mindblowingly transformational as the SLP90 was. That SLP05 is good.

I upgraded my 3 piece digital throughout the ’90s and thought it was good but I also thought that it probably wasn’t getting something right. I bought a SACDp (SA10) over three years ago (’20 I think) and I have found SACDs to be transformational as I do not do vinyl.

. . . and on edit:  I am currently auditioning/breaking in a speaker upgrade (Revel m126be) from  my nearly 30 year old B&W 805s (matrix series).  The B&Ws were transformational at the time seeing as how I had been listening to an affordable pair of NHT 2 ways.  Some nights I think the Revels are transformational and on other nights I would not go that fra.  But they are good.

MBL Loudspeakers ,every model I have heard is excellent on or off axis being 

a omni directional Loudspeaker.

Funny - I thought this was an amp thread til the last post or two.

Moving to a semi-omni-psuedo-line array approach is what did it for me.

Many components have come through upstream of my speakers, some of those being devices of absurd price points (which were not mine). No upstream component altered the sound in a way that compared to the difference in speakers that interact with the room in a fairly “massive” way.

For anyone who wants to sit down and listen to quiet piano solos, or who dislikes a very large sonic image, however, there are certainly more practical ways to go. 

Funny - I thought this was an amp thread til the last post or two.

And I thought it was a transformational piece of gear thread.

+1 for room treatment. But if I go back many decades, junking a Linn LP12 in favour of a Roksan Xerxes was pretty transformational.