purr1n: Raggy is sooo smooth. Like ice after the Zamboni.

schiit: And yeah, Ragnarok's been tweaked to hell and back...and it may not even blow up anymore! Let us know.
schiit: (kidding...a little--let's just say I have a much healthier appreciation for the complexity of a dynamic biasing system now...)

purr1n: LOL, thought Rag was bass lite... until I realized the sub wasn't turned on.
OJneg: lol, I sometimes forget to turn my speaker EQ settings off and then wonder why my headphones sound like ass

Mr.Sneis: And thx for nuthin marv
Mr.Sneis: jk don't ban me

purr1n: just take caution with bad gear. Rag makes good stuff better and bad stuff worse. HD800 (stock) - not see good. Paradox = absolutely stunning. This is the most seductive solid-state amp I've ever heard.

Mr.Sneis: kind of like what I'm seeing with the [redacted] I suppose
purr1n: Rag stomps all over [redacted] tho. There are tube like qualities with Rag. Smoothness, resolution, clarity, plankton. FedEx came three hours ago. First thing I did was open box and plug it it to warm up.

Mr.Sneis: O.o

purr1n: Honestly, I think issues with HD800 can be solved by wiring up a 2 ohm resistor in series.
purr1n: Here's the deal. Solid-state amps don't elicit emotional reactions from me. This one does.
purr1n: The Rag has a strong "suck me in" factor

purr1n: OK - gotta get back and see if I can destabilize the warp core

zerodeefex: Marv, your shilling of the Rag is exciting, haha.

purr1n: haha. But seriously. Rag is seriously fucking impressive, solid-state or tube. Just feel really fortunate I know crazies who make tube amps which have solid-state qualities and solid-state amps which have tube qualities (Rag in this case.)

purr1n: Besides, I think Jason already knows how much I thought the pre-production units sucked. And I signed up for the beta and paid for it, just like everyone else who is on it.

If this is anything like the MJ, I fully expect the Rag to improve considerably (esp w/ HD800) after 150-200 hours. Looking forward to your impressions in another week Marv (and in between)!

Those are some pretty good initial impressions. If it's better than my Krell, I'd be saving a lot of money. But could be different for HE-6.

On the edge of my seat here.  Do tell more about Rag doing tube things.  Hope this amp can do dynamic contrast and shading, layering etc. but still have taught bass, clean transients and yet lack "etch" or brightness.

Oh, according to pseudo objective religious types who know it all, it must be injecting a crap load of 2nd order harmonic distortion to get that 'tube sound'. Jason, how many decimal places out did you guys settle on for that 'tube sound' again?