Consonance Cyber 800/845 Valve amps; how good?

Thanks Grant, much respect to you as well!!!

I know this may be the minority opinion in audiophilia, but I somehow I just cannot feel the soul of the music unless it's played at realistic levels. I could never buy a Ferrari or Boss 429 and drive it 35 mph, and unlike many an audiophile, I can't sit down an listen at 75 dB. A lot of my prejudice is born out by the Fletcher-Munson Curve and the perils of chasing flat frequency response, I guess. Yes, me and The Doctor routinely go well beyond 100 dB - I rebroke in my Coincidents at 120 dB over a significant amount of time with my 60 wpc AtmaSpheres - didn't really seem loud to me.

Right, Paul. However, some of us feel that music at 100 dB+ is not damaging. Being around live musical instruments is VERY loud. Stand 8' from a trumpet, and it is most definitely not audiophile approved volumes. Yet, the sound is not irritating because it is far more natural and organic. The same is true of a great many instruments.

Distortion, machinery, noise, etc. certainly is damaging. One must be extremely careful in this regard. We agree here.

I recently returned from a few weeks in China. Interestingly enough, a week of which was spent in Beijing with Consonance. The trip turned so many of my feelings regarding what China is and is not upside down and inside out.

I must say that during my time there, we had a lot of vigorous discussion, and disagreed on many, many points. In all honesty, this was a great thing, as we got to see that both sides were incredibly passionate, honest, plain speaking people, who like to have fun, and take music/audio quite seriously.

As a good friend of mine likes to say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." In staying at one of the gentleman's homes, his own bone stock Consonance 12 wpc push-pull 2A3 integrated, coupled with a pair of Audio Physic Tempo II speakers (we connected right then and there, as it was only the second time I encountered them - a really close friend of mine and I found them after a long search for his next pair of speakers a few years ago), made music that completely took me aback. And, yes, things were able to play quite nicely at my normal 95+ dB volumes, even the lows for the most part.

No matter what I can say about them, I know in my heart that everything they are using is on the up and up. In fact, they couldn't have it any other way. The three people running the show are deadly serious about getting the best sound they can, and the parts quality they are using flat out surprised me. Frankly, it's far, far better than a lot of more highly regarded companies. These are folks who buy from wherever they feel like - for example, for cars they drive two Buicks and a Jeep.