well, that explains everything. that vintage of YG plus the ASR may not have been copacetic. I heard the full MBL rig at Axpona in Atlanta many moons ago, and I thought it sounded airy and dimension while also being thin and dry sounding lacking pulp so to each his own….I remember the shock of listening to ASR with YG speakers in Munich around 2010 or 2012. The impact was likely amplified because I heard the ASR setup right after the full MBL system. After experiencing excellent sound in the MBL room, listening to the ASR + YG setup felt like trying to eat plastic fruit made for display. It was a poor choice of room for ASR, being directly across from the MBL room.
I didn’t judge ASR’s sound based on its design. At first, I wasn’t even aware that ASR had a separate power supply. After listening to it, I found it lean, slow, and uninvolving—and this impression has remained consistent across various ASR amps I listened that paired with different speakers over the years. For me it has always sounded as I described. Using discrete op-amps slightly improves the sound. The technical details I mentioned are simply an explanation of why it sounds that way.
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