For $500, I bought a used EAR 834P a few years ago from someone who didn’t realize that its sub par performance was do to internal problems,which made him sell it. It had been modified by using a separate power supply, which is a good thing but what really made it great was to send the unit to Walt D’Ascenzo, a brilliant audio modifier in Baltimore.
His audio philosophy, of which everyone should remind themselves, is that the holy grail of audio is the "absolute sound", which is live music. That must be the audiophile’s standard, and that requires going out to live musical concerts, whether it’s classical, jazz, rock, Tibetan, or whatever, this attunes your ear to what’s real. It’ll make the search for the perfect system much easier, but ironically harder to achieve.
His audio philosophy, of which everyone should remind themselves, is that the holy grail of audio is the "absolute sound", which is live music. That must be the audiophile’s standard, and that requires going out to live musical concerts, whether it’s classical, jazz, rock, Tibetan, or whatever, this attunes your ear to what’s real. It’ll make the search for the perfect system much easier, but ironically harder to achieve.