Dear Srajan: I've been following your Rike tube amp review with great interest. I really appreciate how you describe the basic "nothing added, nothing subtracted" situation because it made it clear that on soundstaging, treble, midrange, bass, dynamics and all the other stuff we usually fret about, there was no real difference. Then you added your "Y factor" about that back-lit illumination. Your choice of imagery of the framed photograph hanging on the wall then seeing its digital file on a Retina display where the light passes through the image really portrayed it. I now "see" the difference which finally had this whole tube/transistor debate make sense to me. Would you then say that it is rare to come across a tube amp which, on all the other counts, doesn't take away from the strong sides of solid state? Marco Stratzi
In my experience, yes – finding a tube amp which isn't softer and slower than a premium DC-coupled wide-bandwidth transistor amp is far from common. That's why I'm quite excited to have heard this Romy amp. On our 10" widebanders for which its power rating is excessive to operate the amp in the sweet spot of lowest distortion, the Rike gives me everything I expect of copasetic transistors like our FirstWatt SIT-1. Then it adds that radiant thing which is fabulously attractive. I just wish that I could get that without an amp that runs this hot and still has just a bit of hum; and without tubes that can misbehave as described. But it seems that this inside-out glow effect is peculiar to actual valves. I'm still wrestling that. The MySound Cube EL84 monos are en route already so I'll learn whether on the same speakers they could be stand-ins; or whether triode mode is a prerequisite. Srajan
