Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/stereophiles-products-2020

The finalists in the Overall category included that Sonus Faber speaker and the Jeff Rowland Design Group Consummate preamplifier, which cost just shy of $9000. (The Levinson DAC was the overall winner.) Those were the most expensive products to win a category in 1992. The least expensive was the $499 Audio Power Industries Power Wedge, which won in the budget category. (This year’s Budget winner cost $100 less.) The average price of 1992’s winners—excluding the budget category—was $6259.

http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/gold-note-ds10-streaming-dac-preamp-and-pa10-power-amplifiers/

In a way, I’d argue that the DS‑10/stereo PA‑10 combination is more of a stepping-stone to the mono amps than a solution in its own right. In part, this is because for just a few hundred pounds more, Gold Note’s own IS-1000 integrated amplifier offers a lot of the same performance and sound quality standards, line inputs, and a more powerful amplifier stage. This isn’t a trouncing, as the DS‑10’s standalone DAC performance edges past that of the IS‑1000, the IS-1000 lacks a headphone amp and the PA‑10 is a slightly more graceful sounding amplifier than the integrated. Also, if you are performing a ‘bitza’ upgrade from existing equipment, then the DS‑10 is an obvious digital hub add-in to a system, but in the main if you are set on the Gold Note sound and it’s a choice between the DS‑10/stereo PA‑10 (with no future mono upgrade in the pipeline) or the IS-1000, I think most will go for the IS-1000. Adding in the second PA‑10, however, changes things dramatically. That extra dimensionality to the soundstage, the even greater control over the loudspeakers and its concomitant ‘grip’ on the bass, and the fluidity of midrange simply make so much more sense. All those elements are there in the PA‑10 (and, for that matter, the IS-1000), but they are more brightly lit when you go mono. And there’s even a PSU10 power supply for the DAC, so that should improve performance still further.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/audioquest-niagara-3000-ac-power-conditioner

Upon connecting the XPA-1L’s to the Niagara 3000, I was struck by an improved level of clarity and authority and perhaps a touch of previously unheard sweetness; listening through them suddenly became a more engaging musical experience. I’d been using recent SACD acquisition, the Shostakovich Symphonies Nos. 1 and 15 (SACD, BIS 7318599916439) with Mark Wigglesworth and the Netherlands RPO, as a demo disc for friends with the Bel Canto e1X and the Maggie LRS loudspeakers. With the Niagara 3000 in place, it was now possible to experience the delicacies and dynamics of this music to a degree previously unheard.

I played a few LPs with the PrimaLuna EVO 300 integrated amp connected to the Zu Omens, among them, the new Craft Recordings vinyl reissue of Collective Soul’s eponymous second album (Craft Recordings CR00290). The opening track, “Simple,” is powerful and dynamic, easily the best song on the album. With the Niagara 3000 in the loop, analog playback was the best I’d ever heard here. Even though the Musical Surroundings Phonomena II+ phono pre has a dedicated linear power supply, plugging it into one of the 3000’s source receptacles vanquished the touch of electronic haze that normally appeared in my system around the midpoint of the volume dial. That haze is now gone, at all volume levels.