I wanted to wait before giving my first impressions, but with the amp out of commission, I might as well talk about my "40 minutes".
Background: I started as a sceptic, then, because I like Ian and company, I continued as an interested listener to their AMP speech. Thanks to jakeman's posts, I went from "candidate to buy" to "very likely to buy". I also went from "hoping to hear some difference" to "being pretty certain I will hear some difference".
Well... There is a difference. I listened to things I played a few times very recently 1) First movement of Bach's second partita for solo violon (SACD) 2) Percussion work by Xenakis (CD) and 3) Harpsichord concerto by Manual de Falla (CD) and 4) 10 minutes of DVD "Curb your enthousiasm".
Everything is so much more real. I feared I would have to force myself to hear a difference to justify the 4K$, but no, not even close! I just listened to these things at -17db on the receiver. Even at low volume, the instruments sound like real life. At University, I had a violonist rootmate and it was that sound I heard back last night! I also ealier set the volume to +10db and no distortion whatsoever...
Violin legato sounds like velvet, attacks are perfect, zforsando are very impactful.
So far, I have not felt the need to A/B with the 805 as I can hear the difference as is. More impressions will follow eventually once I have a working system again.
