Agreed, great read.
I remember Mesa's venture into Stereo.
http://www.stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/901mesa/index.htmlOne of these came up on Audiogon...about 1 to 2 years ago. I should have bought it...even if it needed some work. Way cool Amp, in my opinion.
Excerpt of particular interest for me:
"That's because the Baron employs a separate duo and quartet of output tubes for each channel, and you can configure the amp so you alternate between class-A triode (at around 60W) or class-AB pentode (at 150W). Most significant, you can employ increments of the two operating modes: either 2/3-triode/1/3-pentode (at around 90W) or 2/3-pentode/1/3-triode at (at 120W), with three increments of negative feedback (or none at all). As a result, you can literally tune this amplifier disc by disc, song by song to best suit a particular recording style or volume level—while the music is on—or to tailor the amp's performance to accommodate different speaker types or room environments".