Cheap gear, fairly-priced gear, affordable gear, expensive gear and high-end-top-shelf-state-of-the-art gear. And above all you can think of, there's Hovland amplifiers. Now, how much do you think you'd spend on a 400W @8 ohm amp to please your audiophile ears? Would you save as much as $10K? How about thinking twice and going for $20K? Or maybe you want something "true" and hope you'll go for a $30K amp?

S**t no! If you want to be "true", you have to sell everything around you, become someone's slave (not the kinky way, you pervs, ha-ha), rob some banks and gather up the $50,000 needed for the Stratos amp from Hovland. They claim that Hovland Stratos is the result of 20 years of constant research yet I wonder why haven't they researched ways to obtain human pricing as well?

Besides looking like some sort of deco oven and cupboard, the Stratos does absolutely nothing on the "lure-me" side; if you're into oven kink you might get aroused with the Hovland. It's made from 2 separate mono amps weighting a staggering 41 kg each pumping 400W @ 8 ohms, 625W @ 4ohms and 800 @ 2 ohms - so as you see, nothing to start an earthquake.

The only thing Hovland said about the mind-blowing price was that it comes from the extended efforts they've made to put inside only the most perfect and well-balanced components which would ensure an even amping on the given signal.

Believing all these stories is a choice for everyone. Personally, I don't believe them and I guess I won't spend 50 grand on such a device not even if I were Bill Gates.