[TOGA]

On first night, with Memphisto bias set to maximum for many hours, amp is very hot.
I will not go into details as it is no use here. But the first impression for anyone who listen to it will be smoothness. tonality is very neutral. power is strong. but it is not tube. it is a very very good solid state sound, not a hint of tube sound. this smoothness is benefited to every kinds of music, except hard rock or heavy metal where electric guitar need some bite. One big problem is that when I removed Stage III power cords out. and put Audioquest WEL PCs in, I think 40% of magic is gone. What if I try Stage III with Moon , and sure I will try.
Trying to reduce the ultra smooth sound when listen to heavy metal music, I connect Pandora in. umbilical cords are too short to separate them horizontally so I have to stack them vertically. with many hours of warm up. Pandora is also a very very
smooth and ease to the ears, tonality is lighter than ARC tube. I think it is very neutral,
cranking up volume control up click by click and it never seem to running out of juice.
Also this preamp will not make me mistaken it as a tube, sound is very very solid state. very clean and transparent, a bit light in tonality. ARC will make that tube magic mid band glow, which Pandora not.
With different speakers used, this may not be very fair, but I believe Gryphon Pandora and Memphisto are the best solid state amplification I have auditioned at home. they combine smoothness and musicality with great power. But they will not replace tubes.
ARC ref40+Ref75 make much different sound. less transparent, less refined treble, less sharp attack, but richer and have tube glow across the spectrum.
one of the touch screen on Pandora just doesn't work, it's the " enter" so I cannot do anything in the menu, I cannot set Theater Bypass mode on because I cannot press
"enter" button on front panel touch screen.
I could live with Memphisto+ARC very happily, until I try to play Metallica.
I could live with Memphitto+Pandora very happily too, until I try to play Megadeth.
And this is what I have to think about seriously. Also that Stage III cables things.
Now listening to them at the moment and I can feel that the tube magic is not there, but a solid state magic instead.

Toga