What does Mr Nelson Pass think of Yamaha power amps...

Glad your ears are that good.
So am I! Lstening to V-FET amps really helps with that. ;)
I thought the Victor was prime stage?
It was for the last several enjoyable weeks and it will be again in the spring. It's another wonderful sounding V-FET amp that I have the privilage of enjoying!
Is it time for the B-1 already?
This B-1 has been doing shelf duty for far too long now so I thought I'd rotate it in for a few weeks. To be safe I thought I'd bench check it before connecting my precious NS-1KM's. It checked out perfectly and after a couple of days of warming my bench it's now making music with the rest of my system.
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This B-1 was generously donated to me years ago to help with the repair their other one. Since there were only 4 good 2SK77's between the 2, I decided to see how it would sound with some TOKIN 2SK180 which you could buy relatively cheaply back then since it was before Mr. Pass took an interest in them. Out of a box of 20 I was able to find 7 that would work after some mods to the driver board bias circuitry so I picked the best 4 and I'm very happy how it worked out!

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V-FET buddies.

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Currently I use yamaha mx1. I think it's their best in M series. Well under the cover a rather complex HCA circuitry..maybe it's very simple to some)...
Yamaha mx1 on the other hand not a super sweet sounding amp. Yet not harsh or brittle. Very accurate. Reveals a lot more detail. Higher resolution amp. One thing that really sets it apart from older m80,m85, mx1000 is that expensive splash of trembles. Hard to explain. Many call them airy highs.

I owned an MX-1000 for a number of years, and in general, my experience mirrors yours. The 1000 wasn’t super extended and was subjectively short on shimmering treble and the deepest bass, it also had a character. It did sound wonderful using the front level controls when fed directly from an audio source, but appeared to be bottlenecked by a preamp. It had seemingly endless power, but in time I found I didn’t need that.

I replaced it with an MX-2000. The contrast between them in the direct comparisons was interesting. The 2000 could hold me listening into the morning hours. It had hyper projection of fine detail, extended perceived bass and treble response, highs as sharp as a laser, and had an almost relaxed midrange. It sounded much like the Benchmark AHB2.