Personally the "High-end" portable bit does not make much sense to me. That said I would never look past a portaphile or sm or possibly a ae-1 for its connectivity options.
Yes I have although I forget what version it was. I have heard/had Portaphile v1/v2, PRII, Hornet, SR71, SM, and a few others I dont care to think about right now.
It is nice to have the option to tweek the sound to just how you want it. was i in to the portable thing Ide go with one... and to be honest... the SM is not any worse then the bumblebee
Just a quick aside... the freedom to speak your mind does not simply mean swear all you want.... I suppose if that is all your mind is and ever thinks about then it is ok but the intent it is that you should not feel oppressed or that you can not say what you want to out of fear.
I can't stand the politics of this site anymore either. I can't sand the nazi admin reks who finds the need to create entire new forums to make stupid pointless posts in. I QUIT!!!
I've never had a problem telling people what I use in my cables and will always gladly do so. I do sell cables but only to those who do not have the means to make their own. If you can that is great and I hope they do so.
Said GCHA has about $500 worth of mods to it and sounded very nice when I heard it at the Ohio meet a few weeks ago... One of the better single ended SS amps I have heard in a while dispite its very simple design.
The nature of the dual entry on the Senns requires all Senn ables to have four wires. So you could reterminate any of those to XLR. I think toddy has a nice silver aloy Senn cable which might be worth checking out...its even balanced