Hi All;

I am generally of the belief that one properly working solid state linear amp should sound much like any other, at least within reasonable comparisons.

I have Texas headphones in my office, 4435's in pretty close proximity to my desk and they run all day, every day and I know them better than any of my other speakers.

Since these are pretty much populated with "Chevy truck equivalent drivers" robust and easy to repair, the 4435's are the test bed for new and or repaired amplifiers once they have passed the basic VOM tests.

I have powered these with just about everything Crown ever made since the D series as well as many others and yeah they like power but they don't sound bad even on the lowly D45's.

A fully and I mean fully restored SAE2400 has been the power for the last couple of months. These are reported to be a very solid and revealing amplifier. Well, sounds pretty much like most others to me and if I had to give them a single word character description, it would be "bright".

I stacked a rack of UREI amps and EQ's for a period correct rack for my 4350's. They are rolling through the repair shop and the first came back recently, a 6290 that got really worked over. All the crappy punch down wire connectors were removed and all direct soldered. I guess that you can bias them a bit higher than stock since they are fan cooled to sweeten them up a bit and drive the THD lower so this amp got this treatment and much more.

I racked the 6290 yesterday after work and I'll be damned, I was really genuinely surprised. The 4435's have never sounded this big. They literally sound like different speakers and in a really good way. Seriously how in the hell can this be?

There have been M600 mono blocks, PS200's, PS400's, D45's,75's, D150 Series II's, Adcom 585's and mono block 565's, K1's and K2's, CE4000's, ITECH 5000HD's, some of Crowns first Chinese amps I forget the model numbers, and others and how? how is this old thing "The One"? Like no comparison, the one?

This is day two and I can't get over it.

I am actually excited for the 4350's now when before I just thought it would be cool to have a rack of UREI's and hopes they would sound "good enough".

Thoughts?

Barry.