have you heard Map and AV32R side by side?
Yes, in a way.
I tried to bring them run in paralell, as much as possible, but it is not easy to switch power amps so many times around, so I haven't done too much of it .
This with pre-amp qualities of Audionet is not a nonsense since they use Pre G2 as base for MAP. But trust me, there was no audible difference between them in stereo (using DACs from my Accuphase CD.) when bypassed thru processors. And I really tried to find any. Not even if used TAGs digitized inputs.
I can not compare it with reference preamps like those magazines, but I do not believe magazines anyway. (Especially not the german or the english one.)
When CD was used as a drive only, the DACs in TAG (bp192 ) were doing bit better job than Audionet, and overall performance was somehow better. In stereo as well as in multichannel. I would even say multichannel was another step further with TAG.
That was what interested me the most (audio part). That made my decission.
Rest is matter of taste. User interface is different, I liked TAG more. Build quality is TAG forever! Remote from TAG is bad one, but you need Pronto for it anyway. TAG has no phono, that is bad. I also tested XLR from Audionet and I had feeling that RCA was better. But I might be wrong.
Both have some nice features, but TAG is promising more in the future. Unfortenately new box is needed and upgrade will be very expensive.
So, all in all, two nice pieces of electronics. Whatever you buy you'll do the right one. I'd go for TAG. If nothing else then better DACs and best support in the world.
That was all, (but the best would be if you could make your own choice without us messing around)
Pedro
P.S. My description from last posting was written wrong way, but I was mainly judging its processing and DAC performances and that is where MAP lost by not so small margin.