Please don't take this the wrong way, but at the beginning of the review you state you are not an audiophile, but instead a music lover searching for the holy grail of sound quality that produces life like sound from records. What else do you think an audiophile is? To me your qualifying statement is perhaps the best description of exactly what an audiophile is, that I have ever read.
 
Sometimes I think many of us have a skewed view towards audiophiles and exactly what they are. The whole term seems to have taken on a negative conatation these days, mostly due to a few individuals who have made the equipment more important than the music. Even those few misguided individuals still got started because they were music lovers to begin with. They still are. An audiophile is NOT someone who cares more about the sound or the equipment used to re-produce it than the music itself. An audiophile is a music lover who aims to re-produce the music he or she loves to the very best of their abilities in their own homes. I have a lot of audiophile friends who are all music lovers first. None of them care more about the equipment than the music. I feel those types are very, very, few and far between.
 
End of rant.
 
Nice review.

Really good review.  I have an HA-2.  The only issue I have is that the HA-2 is not powerful enough to drive my Beyer 880 premium 250 ohms well.  Sure I can use them, but the volume control is almost all the way open on high gain.  The HA-2 sounds like a different and much  better amp with my Shure 1540s.  My Cayin C5 drives the 880s really well.  I  have been using the HA-2 as a desk top stand alone DAC with the Asgard 2 amp, and that combo works, although the Asgard 2 is working harder than I would like to drive the 880s.
 
Bruce