The Yamamoto really is magical sounding. With the same output tubes in both, I was gratified to hear that the Simple with it's significant modifications by Steve outperformed it in terms of separation between the instruments and voices and a greater sense of the venue on live performances.

Where the Yamamoto kills the Simple is in the upper octaves. The simple, in comparison, is overly dry and a little etched. Thinking that perhaps it could be the silver hook-up wire we used, I decided to try changing it for copper. I had a bit of XLO teflon-insulated pure copper in 26ga. I bought from Michael Percy several years ago.

I only replaced the output wires to and from the choke and output transformers. The change is all for the good. Now Steve Brown's version of the Simple has some of the the sweetness of the Yamamoto without losing the sense of air and detail.

Perhaps any good copper wire would yield the same result but this XLO at 65 cents/ft. is marvelous. It will be much easier to return the Yamamoto to Colin, knowing that the Simple 45, altho' different, is in the same league.