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Originally Posted by Hues
Thank you. Any insight into roughly how many of each were produced?
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No idea how many of each were produced…my guess would be that there is a similar quantity of both types of single-box Giscours that has been produced given that each has about a 5-year production life. (We're pretty far of topic here in a "Monbrison Versions" thread…).
Having heard a couple of Monbrison's, I would be hesitant to presume that the "version" of a Shindo product is all that important. They can be quite different or similar in internal construction, regardless of which "version" they are. The "versions" seem to be aligned mostly with shifts in primary tubes, which are only part of the package, given that capacitors, transformers, etc. can change without a new "version" being declared.
What I have deduced is that as certain tubes have become scarce, the quality of the rest of the unit has improved to be able to get comparable or better sonics out of lesser tubes. A good example of that would be the D'Yquem's, which while I haven't heard, some people whose ears I trust have really, really liked - and they use bog-standard current production tubes. As do the CC80's, which sound as natural as any KT88 amp has sounded to my ears.
All that to say…given limited supplies of certain tubes and other parts, Shindo probably needs to be a little better as designers today than they were 15 years ago. The good news is - it seems like they are. Thus justifying the higher prices of recent years.