My single best purchase

I have bought a lot of equipment, and one purchase stands above all of it. The MA9500 was and still is one of the best integrated amplifiers ever made. Period.

I bought it in a hurry and for the right reason. My new B&W Diamonds sounded hollow on a Yamaha AVR, I had royally messed up, and I did the wire transfer within a few minutes of my call. It needed four people to carry it into the house, and I stared at it for hours once it was there.

A finance man does not judge an asset by its price; he judges it by what it carries. For years it was my partner in crime. We went up the ladder together, new speakers, new cables, new sources, mix and match. Every single time it unfolded everything I needed to hear to compare, evaluate and choose.

That is the real return. A reference you can trust makes every other decision possible, because you know the amplifier is not the variable. Built like a tank, sounds like life itself, and when everything else failed, it did not.

My single best purchase ever was not my most expensive one. It was the one that never failed me.