Immedia's Allen Perkins was showing his 60Wpc class-A Spiral Groove E60A stereo power amplifier ("around" $15,000). "That's 'e' for Equinox, which is what I call Sonic Groove's spiral logo, "said Perkins. "Sixty, of course, is its output, and A is for class-A." It's a slick unit, hewn from a solid block of aluminum and employing an extremely low-noise fan to keep operating temperatures low. "For a class-A design, it's pretty energy efficient," Perkins added.

Driving a pair of Sonics Animas, it sounded agile and authoritative. The Animas are admittedly not a difficult load, but Perkins was getting bass and dynamics out of them that were better than I was able to achieve in my listening room, where I found them mighty impressive. Maybe Perkins' set-up wah is more powerful than mine, but I bet the amp helped a lot.