SMSL never owned, got the vibe about reliability, though they say it has gotten better. I have not gotten a high powered SS amp, went tube after finally hearing a true SET... Plan is to balance things with a solid state having crazy headroom, now that I understand it (thanks to Jackula) such as the Audio-gd HE-9 (used;) or some model under it,, and then came along this THX 789 with the new, clean & powerful, driver chip sets... at such a low...