Well, and the winner is all the way from China...Vincent :-). It could be my personal preference, it could be great synergy with my Volent VL-2 speaker, it could be that CA200 isn't fully broken in. Whatever the case,tubes got me off the merry go around with my headphone rig a month or two ago and now they have done it again. Great open soundstage, first rate clarity and the biggest cliches of them all, it sounds like music and it sounds real. The soundstage is deep but also with great height (one of the weaker points of my speaker which I don't think about anymore) and width, never agressive but at the same time very clear. It pushed the soundstage back on my lively Volents and now it's match made in heaven. It doesn't make carved mosaica of sounds like a lot of amps. CA200 is very polite amplifier, with great depth, but not nearly as transparent as Vincent and doesn't sound as good to my ears. The break in would have to be a sensational transformation for me to change my opinion.