A 9 watts beats Passlabs, EAR and YBA ?

Audio Mirror amps.. Just unreal bass, like subwoofers with no needed equalization! Very sweet and natural as well, my 20 watt amps just destroyed the last threshold and Odyssey mono blocks I had.. But then again the more efficient the woofer the better off you are. I auditioned some atma-sphere Mono blocks, pretty good too, but with like 15 tubes per mono way to excessive in my mind, re-tubing is a nightmare, and they use the same tubes as the audio mirrors, but the audio mirrors only need 2 power tubes each, both models the 20 or the 40 watt. Pure SET class A and the best I have heard yet honestly.

I normally don't comment on these amps as they are very rare to see, most don't know about them, and just don't need to get into a debate.. Oh and I had the carys as well, but too soft without as good of a drive for my taste. The others I have never heard.

Its all about the rules of human hearing. Negative feedback generates distortion that the human ear is very sensitive to: odd ordered harmonics. They cannot be eliminated unless you also get rid of negative feedback! So amps that are zero feedback will often sound inherently smoother and more musical than those that use it. more:

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html

If you have a chance, try the EAR 890. The 834 is a little soft and vague sounding, at least to my ears. The 890 is a different beast - musically real and engaging.

As far as I knew, all the EAR would have a family kind of tonality; yes, the 890 is more powerful, it still a PP Class A and it probably will not be as lively as the SET.