+1 on this. The owner of a local audio store turned me onto the Revelation about a decade ago when I was looking for a preamp to go with my
McIntosh MC2120 power amplifier, but couldn't afford a C27 or just about any other McIntosh (or similar) preamp. He asked me if $225 was beyond my means, I replied no. We drove to his house, and he handed me an early Revelation which had recently been repaired (minor shipping damage). I was a bit underwhelmed at the lack of inputs, but the sound was excellent. Eventually, I got a good deal on a Pioneer SPEC-1 which had more inputs (and came with a SPEC-4), so I set the Revelation aside for awhile.
Some time later, I needed to put together a demo system for a local audio get-together, and grabbed two components I happened to have lying around, my Dynaco ST-70 and the Revelation. I was so impressed by how good they sounded together that I put them to use in my office system, which is where they sat until recently, when the Revelation developed a nasty hum in the right channel.
I'm hoping that replacing the filter capacitors will alleviate the problem. Here's a picture of the pair in happier times:
Anyway, here's my choice for 'underdog' hifi component, though you might not think so: the
Sansui AU-70. I had little to no idea it existed until I came across one at a local hamfest last year. At first, I thought it was early solid-state, until I looked around the back and saw tubes. Once I took the top cover off, I was greeted with the largest output transformers I've ever seen in an EL84-type amp. I still have yet to replace all of the gray oil caps under the hood, but what I've heard thus far has me quite impressed.