Lavardin IS Reference or IT - anyone heard?

Ed Sawyer, I like the 845 as well. How would the Lavardin compare to an 845 SET (roughly speaking). In case one ever had to move away from tubes for child safety reasons.

Budrew, perhaps you should get your tubes tied!

Seriously, thanks for the input Ed, Phil, Budrew.

I own the IS reference and use them with Devore Gibbon 8's and currently using an Ayre CX-7e as a front end(also considering the RA Opus 21).

The lavardin replaced a pair of welborne drd 300b' mono's and a Korneff pre. It goes without saying that you lose some of the harmnic warmth of the 300b(the welbornes are fairly clean btw), but I picked up an octave of bass, pace, and finer detail. The music lifted off the speakers and just flows. Similar in feeling to my PS Audio HCA-2, but better at low volumes, and clearer.

Pretty much a no brainer if you can find one used as they sell VERY quickly when they come up.

My only nit to pick - lack of remote.

Ah! Excellent insight, Prfont...

I recently bought a 2nd hand but nearly new IT, only, I am afraid, because I could'nt cope with the heat from my 845 SET in the Summer. I was expecting it to be good, but it is quite as good, though different, than the 18watt SET. The latter has more drive but the IT more air and delicacy. I plan to keep both and can't see myself changing either. The SET will be for winter use. The family can gather round it and toast marshmallows.
The IT seems a bargain to me, its a minimalist design and the output is only 50watts, but that is enough for a lot of speakers these days