why does triod mode sound better than ultralinear?

Despite what you might imply from Marakanetz' post, the signal path will be no shorter in triode mode than it is in ultralinear, though there will be fewer engaged elements inside the power tubes. Unfortunately, with the C-J amps it's not as simple as flipping a 'triode' switch to do this experiment (unlike the VTL's, which BTW are not otherwise wired in ultralinear but regular pentode), as the amp needs to go back to the factory for the modification. Going triode will not be a panacea or unequivocal gain - what you pick up in purity you will probably lose in extension and drive. FWIW, as a MV-55 owner (who now uses VTL's) I once investigated this procedure (since I live about 25 minutes from the C-J factory), and learned that C-J estimates that at least half of the audiophiles who try this mod wind up getting their amp converted back to ultralinear operation in the end. This tells me that unless you have quite efficient speakers, a smaller room, and prefer to listen mostly to smaller-scale acoustic and/or vocal music, you'll probably be better off overall using your MV-60 the way it came.

aright2 wrote: "The ultra-linear design is a Class A/B amplifier." Just to be clear - and I'm sure aright2 knows this and didn't mean to imply otherwise - the MV-60 would still run in Class A/B if rewired for triode.

I see that I made a mistaken statement when I posted here back on 2/18/03: Actually, VTL's run their output tubes in either triode or tetrode mode (switchable in many models) but *not* in pentode, even if the output tube used is a pentode type. Oops.