Which cleansers did you compare -- 409, Mr. Clean, Comet, Ajax, or...???
Who is John Hillig and what exactly does he rule? Does he know he rules it?
I usually don't like the front seat at a concert -- I like to be a few rows back, but it that's your bag, by all means smoke it!
Back in the olden days, I used to have a Hafler 500 driving Maggie MG-III's and the combination sounded quite good. The 500 was a decent sounding amp as I recall.