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Greener pastures. With my Swiss soundkaos Wave 40 tone-wood speakers set up from the most recent outing, their sound-body action mimicking that of a violin or guitar by design, the Pathos MkII was far too portly and slow. On separation and articulation it was barely feathered or fanned out. In short order Jefferson Torno's 'ultra-linear' Grand Cru Audio Horizon loaners took pride of place instead. With wide-bandwidth fast direct-coupled amplifiers à la Goldmund's Job225 and Crayon Audio's CFA-1.2 for stark contrast, a few things became crystal clear out of the gate. Even on the very accurate French d'Appolito towers with ribbon tweeters, the Italian amp seriously downplayed timing and transient precision. Its reading of familiar tunes was far softer, thicker, fuzzier and frankly pudgy. It heavily prioritized weightiness, smoothness and general density. The price to pay was stark neglect of incision, energy transmission and quicksilvery reflexes. Everything sounded texturally bloated, blurry of focus and clumped together like a big mass of warm sound with very little articulation or distinctiveness.

I couldn't help but flash on Bob Backert's disdain for electrolytics as reported on in my preceding review of his Rhythm 1.1 valve preamp. Its very novel power supply's minimal capacitive requirements avoid all electrolytics to get two compact top Teflon film-foil caps instead. Not so the far more conventional Logos MkII. And unlike my speed amps, it obviously also must use coupling caps. The result—which may or may not have had anything to do with those capacitors—reconfirmed why I'd given up on valve amps.

Compared to the affordable Job225 whose snap and lucidity admittedly want superior transducers in no need of padding, the Pathos acted sleepy, groggy, indecisive and sonically far more primitive. Lower playback levels were painfully boring and uninvolving. The many virtues of the Horizon speakers were cloaked in a veil. They sounded like a bad version of a vintage Sonus faber instead of like themselves.

Swapping in my highest-resolution speaker on hand which was still in from its review, in the off chance that it'd tip the balance, accomplished nothing substantial. This EnigmAcoustics Mythology M1 paled by comparison to what the Crayon Audio CFA-1.2, FirstWatt SIT1 and Job225 get from it. There was no doubt in my mind. I'd given the Italian my most copasetic loads. Moving in my Boenicke Audio B10 or German Physiks HRS-120 was for naught. What this amp really seemed to want to get anywhere near what I'd call on target was a Teutonically bright lean speaker; perhaps even some wiry very lit-up cables to match. That left me out and in the dark. With what I had on hand, the Logos MkII veered irreparably deep into plush coziness to quite miss the mark on anything I could get behind.

What faced me with was that unpleasant thing which challenges all reviewers doing it long enough. Whilst despising to go all dismissive like some self-righteous clown, we're committed to calling things as we hear 'em rather than hide behind an easy policy of quietly sending back what passes us by. But make no mistake, hifi is just a hobby. It's about preferences and personal hot buttons. Providers of hifi gear are in the business of offering us the most varied of such options. Simultaneously they mean to stay in business, keep their facilities open and their employees on the payroll. Irresponsible reportage mistakes failure to please one writer with universal defectiveness. That's so wrong on so many levels. That stated, for an enthusiast writer to deliver more than just perfunctory reportage requires some wind in its sail to move forward and not in circles. No wind and the narrative inevitably stalls. That's where I found myself. For another reality check after having played extensive musical chairs, I reverted again to the Mythology 1 driven by my Crayon. Instantly the sound as I knew it was back. Clearly the Logos MkII and I failed to see eye to eye and ear to ear.

Having requested a fully broken-in unit and seeing no evidence of failure of any kind, the Pathos Acoustics Logos MkII and my resident hardware options simply didn't get on. To not belabour this point with repetitive descriptions, I'll excuse myself as the wrong person for this job. If my experience of it really coincided with what the MkII was meant to sound like, it'd take a writer of quite different ideas and priorities to do it proper justice. If as I suspect it was designed to sound quite different, I clearly lacked the proper hardware mates to see it so. In either case, I had to resign from the job. Out to pasture and all that. Some other reviewer is bound to find the same grass far greener...
 
Postscript: In a subsequent email, Enrico Fiore of Pathos reminded me that this amplifier design has sold for about 14 years and enjoys thousands of very satisfied owners around the world. How could I possibly call it crap and all of those owners idiots by implication? Obviously I said no such thing. Yet people are bound to take this stuff very personal indeed, particularly so the actual maker and his agents. It thus seems opportune to reiterate that for a number of years now I've given valve amps a miss though I did own SETs and push/pull specimens of various power ratings for many more years. Since this shift in my listening preferences towards wide bandwidth 'fast' and very lucid transistor amps, my choices in speakers have changed as well. Perhaps I should have anticipated a mismatch with my boxes and listening bias? If so, I plainly failed. I would certainly encourage listeners fond of a more traditional valve sound who need power without reliability issues—the Logos MkII only uses small-signal tubes—to investigate this Italian integrated. After all, each and every review is always no more than just one man's (or woman's) experience and opinion. It couldn't possibly invalidate the experiences and opinions of thousands of happy owners!

Pathos Acoustics website