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Incidentally, Steve was hoping he could come up with a 2A3/45/300B-type amplifier to outperform the Taboo and offer that to the public instead. It'd have made for so much easier marketing. Alas, it wasn't to be. The ordinary EL84 in his circuit proved more extended, more transparent, more dynamic and faster. So what's an honest guy to do? Stick with what works even if it lacks snob appeal.

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Preconception alert: From owner testimonials of the 2wpc Decware amps, I expected an extremely fast, transparent and dynamic sound (which, translated, could also mean a bit lean and lightweight and harmonically bleached). [...] My question, outside of power sufficiency, was simply whether I'd get it or not. I needn't have worried. The Taboo instantly conformed to my expectations and translated. This is an ultra-transparent wide-open window on sonic proceedings.

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Any ambivalence about bass performance -- into copasetic loads -- belongs into the trash. The SV83 is the little tube that ate the ton of spinach. It's not just respectable or good for what it is, it's outright boffo and refuses to make any concessions. Top to bottom, things are linear, even and uncontoured. They're smooth but not at all in the additive sense. There's no fat or fatty sheen. There's simply a refusal to enter the grit department and sprinkle even a bit of fine-grain sand on the audio road. The usual crystal-clear mountain spring water simile applies in spades. However, it simultaneously conjures up images of ice cold - refreshing but nearly a bit gratingly so. That part of the image is simply not applicable here. This isn't a stark high-noon kind of clarity but simply an absence of disturbances or filters. You could at first feel compelled to call it an absence of recognizable texture, albeit one which doesn't at all equate to flatness. In fact, there's an overabundance of spatial bloom, of contrast intensity. There's outrageous microdynamic agility as well. It heightens the suchness of a singer's presence like Lila Downs or individual instrumental threads that project and recede in accordance with player emphasis, like a rotating tableau of figures which alternates who's closest to you - except here it could be individual tones, not just performers. All this occurs without any airbrushing or underhanded injection of extra body as some valved pieces can do. The Taboo isn't a bloomy romanticizing fellow at all. Completely different universe. Neither do tonal colors come across as lean, however. No tonal sacrifices have been made to artificially create the perception of fake speed or incisiveness. Still, there's an instantly obvious intensity or energy that operates across the audible range. It's of a different nature than the ultra drive of the FirstWatt transconductance amps. Hearing this is one thing, explaining it quite another. My best attempt will have to be super contrasty. This quality operates simultaneously in the soundstage -- more image pop or holography -- and as thereness/presence factor that's quite different from Nelson Pass' transistor amps. It's distinctly not valve bloom. Perhaps it is texture after all?

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As I experiment further, I'll report more. For now, the Taboo definitely has already messed big-time with preconceptions that tend to circle like hungry vultures around price, power and size. Who needs 300Bs and massive 274 rectifiers when micro power bottles the length of a grown man's pinky and "ordinary" rectifiers will do the job just as well? Who needs fancy direct-heated triodes when pentodes can apply? Just remember that you must supply appropriate speakers to follow the Taboo down its forbidden paths. In my mind, appropriate equals 95dB speaker sensitivities.

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This li'l bugger is doing things it rightfully shouldn't. And it's not doing other things it really shouldn't be doing - bad, compromised things. There are no untoward signs of weak-chestedness, of an underendowment to handle whatever is thrown its way. There are small affordable tubes but except for the monster focus on nearly hyper-real presence -- and the wide-open but suave treble -- this underdog doesn't make any tube-like sounds. It simply projects energy and clarity with elan and aplomb. It's a very very fast amplifier. Color me impressed. Mucho.

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