I read John's review yesterday. I'm normally not a huge fan of subjective-only reviews, but this one struck a chord. We all like to see comments and reviews on things we have spent quite a bit of money on that present a positive spin on the product. It's human nature - we don't want to feel like we made a serious mistake.
This review, of course, was very positive and having had my 281 for several months, I found myself talking to myself while reading the review - saying things like "Of course, well that should be obvious, it does do that well, etc".
It seems that quite a few people like amps that color the sound and John made a statement to that issue and I couldn't agree more - yeah, it has it's novelty, but you want your amp to give you an accurate, neutral and transparent presentation of the music and that's just what the 281 does. I don't want an active tone control for an amp.
I agree with what John said about the Mjolnir also. I have one and it's a excellent amp, but not the 281.
It seems to handle everything well. I don't listen to iems, but I have low impedance, high sensitivity phones, high impedance phones and low sensitivity planars (LCD-3s and HE-560s). It just makes them all sound great. I've fallen hard for my 281 and HE-560s. The 281 places them ahead of the LCD-3s (pre-fazor model). If I had to give most everything I had up, I'd be keeping the 281 and the 560s.
John your review characterizes all the things I've been thinking to myself these past few months. Perhaps with your review at Innerfidelity, word will get out about this wonderful amp. More people will have a chance to hear what has become my end-of-the-trail amp.
Thanks for a solid look at the 281 and not pulling any punches with regard to more expensive offerings - I found that refreshing.
