Since I treated meself to a shiny new bike a week or two ago, one of the two
salesmen (not kids - 48 and 63 years old, apparently) has been here several
times to hear my kit out of an *increasing* curiosity. (Turns out they are
both long-term 'audio enthusiasts' with a lot of 'ordinary' stuff like
Cyrus, Arcam, LP12, Impulse and IMF speakers between them...!!)

Anway, the chap that had been here was keen to hear valves and it didn't
take long to get a 'stunning' comment out of him! (My kit has chosen to
behave itself a bit better lately, since my NOS PM6Cs decided to spit the
fur-ball....!! ;-)

The upshot is he is now the owner of an Icon Audio Stereo 40 (which was not
mine to sell and which sounded like **** until I put my own NOS Russian
5881s into it and changed it *massively* for the better!) - having had no
less than 3 of my amps to hear at his own home. (The guy lives walking
distance from here.)

The other night, once I could see he was utterly locked on, I asked him what
it was he thought he liked about valves now that he had had some not
inconsiderable exposure to them. Quick as a flash he said 'They're *more
real*!!

:-)

No big deal (I couldn't care less either way) but I just thought I'd pass
that on as the comment 'realism' seems to draw so much much adverse reaction
here, at times!!

Also....

He is now the owner of one of my spare DD turntables, not having had/used a
tt for long, long time, apparently!!

I dunno.....


OK, that's it - back to what you were doing...!! :-)