[Randy Myers]

Hey Bill, With only about 30 hours on the amp I did do a quick comparison. Knowing of course the W4S needs a ton more time to break in. EJ actually said that the amplifier will take as much as 500 hours to totally settle in.

Anyway, with a quick comparison it actually did rather well. The Job was a bit smoother and warmer. This is not surprising since every piece of W4S gear that I have broken in so far came out of the box bright and a tad harsh. The manual for the amp states to expect this also.

The Wyred amp has very tight bottom end, and appears to me to be very controlled.

What was really surprising to me was the imaging and separation. I got to say the Wyred more than held its own, maybe even being a little better. One demo song that I was listening to has two acoustic guitars playing on either side of the vocalist. On the ST I could distinctly hear each guitar and distinctly on both sides while on the Job it got a little muddled in the middle and I found it difficult to pick out each guitars individual strings. This surprised the heck out of me because I distinctly remember this being a strong point of the amplifier when I put it against the McIntosh.

Over all they are both very good. The Wyred needs many more hours to break in. I believe/hope that the brightness and slight harshness smooths out. On each of the other pieces from Wyred 4 Sound they did indeed smooth out as they approached 100 hours.

I believe the Job may be a bit more refined and and maybe a deeper image. Obviously both are very good amplifiers in my view. I believe, after broken in, I could live with either.

By the way, the fit and finish on the Wyred amplifier is absolutely outstanding.
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Now that the W4S has some more time on it (about 60 hours or so) I decided to do some real serious comparisons. Tonight I made sure to use the Kimber speaker cables and the AQ power cable on both amps, etc.

Well I still think the W4S might have a little wider image, but the Job is showing it's Goldmund heritage. Very accurate, very smooth, very musical. I am going to give it some more time, but I think there is a good reason that the Goldmund version sold through their normal channels is a $15k amp. Gonna give it some more time, but it looks like the Job is probably winning this shoot out.