This last year was one that had three significant surprises from the products that passed through my listening room. The biggest surprise of the year was that there was an amplifier that would make me willing to part with my beloved Wavac EC300B, and it was a transistor amp. The next biggest surprise came the way of what I can only call the world’s best tone controls, and the last was a little transistor phono-preamp from a tube amplifier company in Mexico. So let me share why these products were such huge surprises.