Ruben- I have not heard any other Decware amp than my Rachael and my SE84CS but I can tell you that matching to the correct speakers is really important. Decware gear usually holds it's value pretty well so buying a used amp could be a good way to go. I would consider having the seller send it to Steve to evaluate it and transfer the life time warranty. I love the magic that our ZP3>Rachael>Omegas are making right now. Keep us posted, welcome to the forum and happy listening. Chris

Thank you for the feedback so far.

I have not decided on any speakers yet. I know the Omegas, Decware's stuff, and Zu Audio were some i were looking at (high sensitivity stuff).

I did call Steve to talk to him, he was helpful. he basically said because I don't have speakers yet, we have a blank slate to play with, and swapping some tubes here and there or recommending speakers he can get the Torii Jr to sound like the Rachael (romantic/etc).

For example, he mentioned speakers with a single driver & no crossover (fast) can pair well with the Rachael. Speakers with heavy duty fat crossvers (vandersteen/etc) when paired with a Torii Jr can bring some of that romantic noise.

Subsequently pairing the Rachael with a vandersteen would make it X times more smooth.

He also mentioned in blind tests you're probably not going to be able to hear the difference, even he has trouble sometimes - lol. He said they went through a lot of prototypes to get the Torii Jr sounding like the 2W amp. Seems like the idea here is less is more, less in the signal path.

In a room my and your size, he mentioned that the Rachael and Torii Jr will perform equally well at conversational level. If during the day the noise floor is raised (AC, construction, kids, etc). - that's when the Rachael would get stressed. I don't have a noise floor issue. If both amps sound seemingly identical at lower volumes, I'd go for the Torii Jr.

Everyone's goal may or may not be the same. Once upon a time I used to come home from work and listen to music for 2 hours straight. Those days I had a tube amp, and tube CDP (Jolida JD100A).

It's only after you cycle through a lot of equipment do you realize which pairings worked well for you, and you may miss them.

I purchased a Musical Paradise D1 DAC to go from my PC FLAC to an amp. Right now it's between Decware (Rachael/Torii Jr) and an Eastern Electric M88.

The value being held on the Torii Jr on Audiogon is MSRP. I think I would like to try a Rachael first but from what I'm hearing people would like to have the Torii Jr if they could swing it.

One thing is for sure, it's good to have someone crazy/perfectionist creating the amps for us.

Reuben