The interesting thing is to go look at what amplifier Steve actually owns and uses on his own gear. Realize that reviewers only get free equipment to review if they give it a good review. I believe he is fully invested in a low watt tube amp. So there must be something about that tube amp that sounds better than the purifi amp or he would have switched. Whether you would also prefer tubes or not is up to you but you won’t know unless you listen to some of each.

What are you measuring? Signal to noise - doesn’t matter since almost all equipment is good enough this way. However, it doesn’t even come close to measuring how things sound when reproduced thru a speaker.

Well, number 5 might be true. At least 20% isn’t a bad percentage to be correct…

Cause one sounds like ass and the other doesn’t.

Sounds about right assuming a reasonable budget. If you are low budget it takes at least a certain amount to get you reasonable components so they may take a larger percent of your budget. But even at say $3,000 you should be spending half on speakers. AND, when you get the bug to upgrade, consider upgrading your speakers first.

And don’t forget that you can gain a huge amount of improvement with room treatment.

Mine is in the fireplace - which we never used anyway - and sounds better than anywhere else in the room. Do the crawl test…

I generally do a good enough job researching any new purchases that I don’t get buyer’s remorse.

I did get a bad case of seller’s remorse recently when I sold my Infinity Quantum II speakers. I was listening to something and realized I would never hear those 3 emit speakers per side again and got it bad… Man, that babies could ROCK!