I readily acknowledge that different amplifiers sound differently and have various pluses and minuses, but doesn’t each and every piece of hardware in our systems do likewise? Having two or several different amplifiers to play differing types of music or to fit our mood at the time, would be a real treat. But once amplifier rolling is begun, should or would this concept end there?
There is no one best component, including our beloved SoundLabs. Every audio component in our rig has its strengths and weaknesses. That is, we may believe that one component’s voicing may sound better with one type of music than another, which may depend upon our mood at the time or not etc.
It is difficult and costly enough to select and then mix and match each component in our systems, let alone trying to pick multiple components to fit a music type, or our moods etc. Where would the mixing and matching as in sliding in/out multiple amps, pre-amps, cables, speakers, turntables, tonearms, cartridges, tubes racks, footers and DAC’s end?
I often thought that if money and space were no object, it would be handy to have a room with a high ceiling and a motorized cable and pulley system installed to raise and lower equipment. I could raise an amplifier, a speaker etc. and lower another for a music type. Or do the same for a pre-amp, DAC, turntable etc. But at what point do we just determine that what we have is good enough and simply listen to the music we love? In fact, speaking of music, sometimes I find it a tad bit difficult to pick what music I want to listen to and when. After doing so, would I then want to choose which DAC, amp, cable, I would like to listen to that music? For the most part, I think not.
Nevertheless, having two different amps to listen to (as some here are fortunate to have) would be a treat, somewhat like selecting a varietal and then bottle of wine. But invariably after many different tastings, I tend to pick favorites and generally stick with them. For me, the same holds true with my music playback system. Even if I were able to easily move and connect equipment, which I am not, I don’t really want to drive myself crazier by having multiple components in place waiting to be used, like many audio stores do. Would I like it, especially if it were easy and doable? Yeah, I think so. But I fear that novelty would wane, leaving something else in its wake to look forward to, collect, or do.