Valves, I think I'm starting to understand what the fuss is about.

[HighFidelityGuy]

my view... is the valve amp is will be letting more of the finer detail through.

and in my view, that results in more of the harmonics being heard.. that tends to sweeten the sound and make it more musical, and can give more a room filling sound stage. What can sound like better seperation with the SS amp, could be due to the higher harmonics being missed, when they should bring the sounds together more.
in saying that, in most cases there should still be pinpoint seperation of all the sounds within the music, and a sense of space and air,

I think you might be right about harmonics etc. I definitely got a sence that the harmonic content was different but I couldn't put my finger on the exact difference. I think I'll be able to tell better once I get the switch box and can switch between the amps quicker. I've heard that the harmonics that valve amps produce are mure musical sounding and more pleasing to the ear. So I guess to a certain extent I need to get used to this difference but at the same time I do like the sound I get from my solid-state's. I think I just need to pin down the differences and then decided which areas of each I prefer. I can then attempt to get the best of both through tweaking..

hi Dave,
mono block amps whether valve or solid state will almost always give a better definition on right and left source recorded information than a stereo unit that shares the same power supply and chassis etc, other than that i think from what you have desribed, you have had a positive and pleasant surprise with your first adventure into Valve power amps.
Anthony,TD...

I did suspect that. I do really like the extra channel seperation that monoblocks bring. I'm hoping that some tweaking will improve this area. It may not actual be a big issue, I've so far only noticed the smearing on one dubstep track that I only use for testing bass and chanel seperation. I don't have much music that will really highlight the weakness. So some extra chanel seperation and a wider stereo image would just be a bonus. I've seen some E80CF valves that are supposed to excel in this area, so I might try a pair of them. It's also another area where I think the power amp conversion may help as I think this will reduce crosstalk.

It's definitely been a pleasent supprise so far. I was expecting to have more issues that couldn't be solved without buying new speakers. That would have been a deal breaker as I love my speakers and I can't afford a bigger valve amp yet. Luckily it seems that the weak areas should be relatively easy and inexpensive to improve. So I'm felling quite positive about the whole thing.

Hi Dave,

Our individual sensitivities help us define our views of the sounds and equipment we like or dislike. I'm unfortunately someone who greatly dislikes unnatural or over-emphasised sibilance. I find a great many solidstate amps are harsh in reproducing sibilance. There are other reasons for my liking valve amps but this harshness issue is a big reason for why I don't get on with many solidstate amps, I can hear the effect as soon as I enter a room with music playing. Of course you can get it wrong with valve amps too but that's harder to do.

I know what you mean. I also dislike sibilance (although I suspect you are more sensitive to this than me), it gives me a headache. As does nasally or quacky sounding upper midrange and/or harsh treble. I've usually found speakers are to blame for this. Some PA speakers are intolerable in this respect. I guess solid state amps will emphasise this further.

My speakers have a seperate soft dome midrange driver that covers almost the entire vocal range and I find this helps as there's no crossover distortion in that important frequency band. Speakers with a crossover point around 3KHz tend to fall down in this area. That's not something your Bastanis will suffer from though.