One of my power amplifiers is the Moon 860A v2, which can be viewed as the predecessor to the 861. For my uses, it’s practically faultless. However, I recall my surprise when I discovered that my Mark Levinson No523 solid-state preamp paired with the Moon sounds noticeably better than my Balanced Audio Technology (BAT) VK-53SE vacuum tube preamp paired with the Moon. The BAT is more to my taste when paired with my other power amplifiers. Possibly just a coincidence, but the Levinson’s maximum gain (13.5 dB) is closer to that of Moon’s line stage preamplifiers than the BAT’s (18.0 dB).
