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If you can befriend purely instrumental virtuoso e-guitar exploits, I here recommend the Animals as Leaders project by the exceptional US guitarist Tosin Abasi for a creatively interesting mix of ProgRock, metal and Jazz. With "On Impulse" the melody traverses the upper mids and highs to easily run the risk of sounding a bit ethereal and thin. With an undue injection of warmth meanwhile definition, verve and lightfootedness suffer. And AVM's Ovation SA8.2 walked this critical line right down the middle. On body and fullness it overshadowed my highly defined but thinner and somehow more crystalline-hard Audionets. On precision and dynamic reflexes I perceived no losses versus my arrow-quick references. We were off to a great start indeed.
On tonal balance both Audionet and AVM stuck to neutral though the latter felt somewhat more substantial than the wiry monos. This also reflected in the bass. On extension and articulation matched, the SA8.2 rendered the whopping toms and bass drums of "Atlas" [Mirrored from the NYC experimental rockers Battles] a bit fuller and heavier. For LF 'visibility', control and macrodynamic swing these competitors delivered what pampered high-enders expect from transistor amps of this price and weight class. Granted, Krell's Evolution 2250e was even more uncompromised but that's nearly an extreme subject. For south-of-the-border frequencies the SA8.2 leaves no room for complaints. Again it played a tad warmer and fuller than my monos but here I'd invoke personal taste contingent also on music and speakers. Do you favor pure sobriety or a dose of emotionality?
But the amps didn't diverge merely on tone mass. The pleasure plus or 'musicality' for AVM had added cause. Where my review of the Krell amp had by default highlighted its bass chops, with the AVM it's in the final analysis perhaps the upper registers which deserve the focus particularly since its treble virtues influence the sum total of one's impressions. Where both Krell and Audionet cater a bit more to the crystalline and accentuated, AVM plays the detail subject at 'eye level' but feels silkier and purer to create a more organic if no less precise reading.
On The Sky's Gone Out's "Bauhaus" this had the soft swirl of the cymbal brush halfway through not fall under the table just like the miniature distortions with "On Impulse" between the melody strings and guitar's metallic frets. On long-term comfort AVM is nonetheless a safe bet. With hard sibilants as on Beirut's "Sunday Smile" from The Flying Cup or Calexico's "The Ride II" [The Black Light] the amp doesn't de-ess but renders such hissiness with less spryness and artifice than my Audionets and many other transistor amps. This made the Ovation SA8.2 into the perhaps most even-tempered amp I've yet hosted.
It goes without saying that this organic flair didn't favor vocals or instruments. The concomitant plasticity even worked for electronica like the the opulent "Skeng" from the Brit Dubstep The Bug's London Zoo which kicks of with some percussive noise that zooms towards the listener whilst slowly descending in pitch. The illusion that despite obvious artifice one could somehow physically touch this sound was truly masterful and ahead of my Audionets which involve one a bit less into space despite having the theoretical advantage of perfect channel separation.
The AVM power amp reminded me a bit of Gamut's D200. Its review goes back but keeps sticking. In that conclusion "the Gamut impressed with dense very pure tone colors free from greyness and in conjunction with a silky elasticity painted a very organic sound picture which strongly befits vocals and acoustic instruments." And finally "the highlight is the very embodied depiction of sonic events". Last but not least elasticity and long-term friendliness were the strongest virtues for the Danish amp.
