though I left MN gladly, more and more pieces of this stereo are made in and around the Twin Cities... the combination of the planar speakers with the anticables works extremely well, and the amp was a significant upgrade for me. goals for this system: resolution and detail, especially for voice and strings in classical music, without giving up attack and bass for jazz. next up: better sources (although I am happy with the hard-drive input for now) and a nicer shelf.
potent integrated that grabs the maggies by the banana horns
Magnepan MG-2.5r
recently refurbished full size true ribbon magneplanar speakers
Mye Sound Anchors
much improved sound
Outlaw LFM 1
huge bass!
Paul Speltz Anticables
replaced a pair of older Tara Labs and totally trounced them
Apple Powerbook
taking advantage of the built-in Bel Canto USB Dac which makes uncompressed music on the hard-drive sound as good as that from the old (admittedly mediocre) silver platter spinner
System edited: upgraded from bel canto integrated to w4s integrated, and from squeezebox to transporter, as well as to some nicer interconnects and powercables all around
thanks garryh - indeed the bel canto came in to do better what an outlaw amp did well: and what a difference. with the outlaw, the smaller maggies in my other system work fine, but these big ones really sing (and offer amazingly tight bass) with this new integrated. I heard some other ICE amps but was attracted to this because of its supremely simple design and interface, and because of the USB input. while I keep trying all sorts of USB DACs (beneath the wavelength brick), to me this solution is the most convincing, for now. the speed and resolution of the bel canto trumped a very good mcintosh amp on the same speakers, in my opinion.
