Thoughts so far — 3 hrs of critical listening. Nothing changed in my system other than the Wells in place of the separates. The powercord on the Wells is the one I use on my Preamp. Took out the pre, two ICs, the amps and their power cords. No other changes.
It's a very nice sounding integrated. I'm not sold on it as a replacment for my Juicy and Odysseys... But that's comparing about $7k worth of separates to a $3500 integrated.
I use a 60-ish track playlist on tidal as my Refrence tracks. I'm very familiar with how those tracks, from that source, through my DAC sound.
Initial thoughts.
• Great Tone and instrument separation
• Slightly dark presentation
• Non-fatiguing. I think the front edges of notes are slightly rounded.
• Soundstage is very good. Instruments are well and correctly placed. Good depth. Slightly less width than my separates. It doesn't extend outside of the speakers as far.
• Not as "fast" sounding as my separates. Not a bad thing nessessarily, it will depend on preference. I prefer the faster sound personally.
• Bass isn't as taunt as my separates, pertains to above. Less woofer control than the Odysseys. Doesn't sound as effortless as the monos.
• Doesn't have quite the PRAT of my separates. Although it's very musical I find that things like a steel string acoustic guitar and violin string plucks and upright bass plucks and slaps don't quite have the attack they should.
• Really good imaging.
• Definitly a "tone" amp and would be killer with speakers that can be on the bright side. I think it's a great amp at the price point.
• Build quality is awesome and it looks and feels very expensive to me.
• The remote sucks, would love to see an upgrade from Jeff and crew. Really cheap compared to the amp and a couple buttons don't do anything. It needs work.
• I definitly get the tube comparison. Very nice and easy to listen to. It's impressive.
My system uses all Clear Day silver cabling, and the RAAL tweeters can be sharp with the wrong gear. So those aren't hurting anything as far as it being on the dark side.
I'm planning on leaving it in my system for a couple weeks until I finish up the new audio rack and then swapping back in my separates. I think I'll make a judgment call then and decide what to do. I can't keep all the gear. Too much cash for me to just sit any of it on a shelf.
More thoughts with more time.
- Woody
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