I made the switch a month or so back - though I didn't import so I paid the Shadow price minus a bit of a decent discount (£1400 for the pre+power, saving around ~£200) due to not trading anything in and being a local...

Though I'd have loved to save a bit more, it's SUCH a good amp at that price it just seemed silly to get fussy over the price. 

In my system, the MiniMax, with a NOS Audiotechnique 6X4 in the pre and a Mazda-labelled NOS Mullard GZ34 from the early sixties in the power amp, is producing by far and away the best music I've heard from a hifi.  The previous 'best' I'd heard was a £40k system involving the very top end Naim kit at a dealer's home (and no ordinary dealer at that).  Certainly, it makes the £5k I spent on a nearly new s/h 52/SC/250 seem completely stupid.  My sonic memory of that system isn't as fresh as I'd like, but I am certain that the MiniMax performs it by a large margin.  At 1/4 of the price.  With a 3 year warranty.  And it takes up less space and looks pretty good (to my eyes).

Sure, 8 watts doesn't buy you PA like levels of headbanger sound, but used with reasonably compatible speakers it wants for nothing.  Not a bean. 

I only wish these amps had been around five years ago as I could have saved myself a lot of time and money.  Let's put it another way: if you like the immediacy and dynamics of decent solid state, but want the tonality and timbre and musicality of valves, these bad boys fit the bill.  Exactly how I imagined the big Border Patrol amps would sound, actually - and they don't necessarily come off the worse for the comparison...

John