Just got this back from John Sampson as I bought it over a year ago and one channel went down within a couple of days (possibly due to the stress of being moved to the old valves). It's been sat in the box ever since until someone kindly offered to take it to John's workshop for me. The unit was already JS upgraded, so John just fitted 4 new valves and sent it back. I just had one of those moments when you change a component and think "Sh1t I didn't know my system was capable of sounding this good." Doesn't happen very often but it's a real eye opener when it does. Plus it brings a big smile to your face of course

While the initial obvious improvement was to the clarity in the highs, as it bedded in it became apparent that a slight hollowness (possibly due to a dip in the upper bass - it reminded me of my old audio physics, both pairs of which exhibited this characteristic.) had gone, and the soundstage had improved including a new-found cohesiveness between the speakers and a bit more width to either side. I also noticed the tubbiness in the bass which I had put down to the ports in the speakers had gone, quite how a dac does this as I thought only the (power) amp could really bring this under control. Overall I'm thoroughly impressed with the dac to the point that it will likely supplant my recently purchased Metrum Octave in my main system and push that into my second. Plus a big thumbs up to John Sampson for sorting out the dac.

Sent from my BLN-L21 using Tapatalk