It won't be a surprise that redressing this shift had me go after Kinki Studio's dual-mono EX-M7 stereo version of our mono amps. It guarantees matched voltage gain, the same input sensitivity and all other circuit parameters. Though strictly speaking perfect frequency equality remains a pipe dream like being born without karma, applying identical harmonic distortion, bandwidth, DC coupling and output devices to the full bandwidth seems ideal to rejig my stereo 2.1 setup. It's not the silly old hybrid notion of tubes on top, transistors on bottom. That'd be a Frankensteinian construct of one person above, another below the belt line. To get closer to the ideal of equal opportunity, greater not lesser seamlessness in both the tone and time domains is a must. It meant identifying a gain topology then execution which I find persuasive across the full audible spectrum; and can afford. Hello full-on Kinki sound. On said subject, I'd also try the EX-M7 stereo amp on the speakers, the mono brethren on the sub. With two 15" woofers driven individually, there's no mono summing of bass involved. How would your casting director roll? Either way, my penchant for upscale SinoFi—two cascaded LHY network distributors had recently joined the main rig—has only our Polish speakers, Swiss sub and British smart xover still be from elsewhere. Assorted Furutech bits from Japan, certain cables, footers and the Spanish racks and AC/DC filter do bust that frame but from iMac to LAN switches to Singxer USB bridge to Cen.Grand DAC and headfi amp to HifiMan Susvara earspeakers to Denafrips CD transport to Kinki amps, all else is really from China by now. The reason is simple: ears + coin¹.
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¹ On the subject, even my desktop follows suit with a LHY clock, Singxer bridge, iFi DAC and EnigmAcoustics speakers. Only the Enleum amp is from South Korea. And the upstairs system has a Chinese Shanling DAP and Soundaware bridge whilst the MonAcoustics speakers go Korean again. There my European holdouts are a Dutch DAC, Austrian amp, British xover and Danish sub. Still, the overall trend for Shaolin Audio is unmistakable. I'm starting to feel like an honorary ambassador on the subject.

If you're up for one more anecdotal aside, my friend Dan recently heard our system. Coming off Cube Nenuphar widebanders on a custom Berning amp, he became the first buyer of Qualio's IQ. I told him that his prior tube amp probably wasn't ideal. Once back in Switzerland he ordered a Kinki EX-M7 and matching Earth cable loom: "I spent the last four hours with the new Kinki stuff and so true, now the IQ are really singing. It's like I hear them for the first time. The sound was a bit bright and aggressive for the first 40-45 minutes then became obscenely—or hysterically, your pick—good. Now the whole room is filled with music."

My amp left Guangzhou on a Friday. It was out for Irish delivery the following Monday. If you buy direct from inventory, delivery should be surprisingly quick if there are no typical airport waits or customs jams. EU residents prepay VAT before their bell rings. When days prior I'd mock-bitched to our local gas station owner about rising petrol prices, he explained that depending on petrol or diesel, he makes two or three cents per litre. Dublin Revenue grabs the rest. Against such extortion, 23% VAT seems downright civil. It's just something to factor in. So is subwoofer ground-loop potential. Our upstairs Dynaudio's power cord must float to be noise-free. Yet regardless of a cheater plug on its power cord or engaging its chassis-earth float toggle, my M7-powered sub hummed loudly. It never had before. I was on new (cough) ground. The crossover's wall wart floats by default. With it powered down, both monos and stereo amp were perfectly quiet. The moment the filter was live, sub hum kicked in beyond tolerable. Ditto for using the M7 XLR. Connecting a feeler wire between M7 earth or ground post to the metal case of the passive Furutech AC distributor powering the lot made no dent. I felt grounded counting Hail Marys. Time for the cavalry, my crossver's designer Pál Nagy. Might he have a clever tip? Both M7 and I seriously hoped so.

And he did. Based on my troubleshooting, he felt that it really wasn't a ground loop but something abnormal within his early Gradient Box. He suggested I try the later version which I run in my upstairs system. Et voilà, that proved as silent as a church mouse. During a previous review I'd already tried the downstairs filter in the 2nd system. I knew that it'd work perfectly there. A simple swap banished my hum, all systems were a go and Pál didn't have to troubleshoot my first filter box. I now had a sub amp whose quality I thought rather exceeds what's built into 95% of active subs. McSplurge? Time for the ears to have their say. After all, they don't always agree with papery predictions.