Audiophilepure

Even though the Shinai offers a nice dose of bloom and gentle warmth, importantly, there’s absolutely no excess of warmth and also no “saddle” effect, in which the midrange is structurally dialed back compared to the bass and treble. Principally, the amp just sounds linear, and it adapts to the music. When playing Toni Braxton or Anita Baker, the Shinai delivers the music with what seems like a subtle golden glow but as soon as you play something spicy like Robert Palmer’s You Are In My System, or basically, anything produced by Michael Frank, the amp immediately flexes its muscles, throws out any idea of sugar-coating and slaps me right in the face with its immediate dynamics! It may sound as if I am being overly dramatic, but really, I am not exaggerating. Whenever I play something spicy, it comes out as such, totally unrestrained.

It’s the seemingly impossible: a very neutral and linear amplifier that is fast, expressive, and dynamic but equally lush, liquid, and seductive, but this is exactly what the Shinai + Combo Stand achieves.

This bass response was partially due to the KT120, but was primarily due to the fixed bias nature of the amplifier. In tube amp design there is a debate over whether fixed bias designs or cathode bias designs are better. Fixed bias will almost always produce better bass, but it may make the amp less dynamic and airy. The Bryce Monos though had it all, great bass and airy and extended highs. Whether it was Alanis Morissette or Mika, trumpets or cymbals, these amps simply delivered in extensions and airiness.

Like ampsandsound’s other single-ended amps the Bryce Monos have a reference midrange. Voices appear to float in the center of my listening room. It draws you in with a texture that makes you want to reach out and touch the invisible person singing in the center of your room. Closing your eyes, you can begin to make out the movements of the singers jaw. This is not an overload of detail, but simply the Bryce’s ability to render an incredibly high resolution experience. This is particularly apparent on The Mountain Goats, Jordan Lake Sessions album. As John Darnielle belts out the word to “This Year” you can feel the emotional toll the year has taken on him, as well as the rest of the band. You can also very clearly hear the room he is in. The saxophone remains locked in place, swinging on the stage in a disturbing but shockingly realistic way. I realized I was literally hearing the saxophonist rock back and forth to the beat.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-research-vt100-power-amplifier

Timbral Coherence: With the VT100 it became irrelevant to speak about how the amplifier recreated the bass, the midrange, the highs. The amplifier did not break down a musical event into its component tonal parts. Given a good recording, the VT100 recreated the timbral architecture of the voice or instrument as a single, coherent musical event.

Given a very good recording, the VT100 caused me to throw my notebook away. I recently acquired a bunch of Classic Records jazz reissues and, using the VT100, set out to undertake a comparison of the LPs with my originals. With each recording, I lost sight of my mission. By the end of the listening sessions, I realized I’d never even bothered to dig out the originals. The Classic reissues sounded so lifelike I didn’t care what the originals sounded like.