Mike, didn't you have Atma-Sphere amps at one time? If so, is there anything you can tell us about 211/845 Bernings versus the Atma-Spheres?
it was a long time ago, 2001. I had the big Atma MA2 mono's in my room for 2 weeks, prior to falling in love with the Tenor OTL's. so relevance of that experience with that generation of the MA2's to the current 211/845 Berning would be a stretch.
OTOH I hear the Atma-sphere's at most audio shows so I do have that on-going experience. and I do recommend the various Atma-sphere amps wholeheartedly as a good value and great sounding amplifier. it has it's own sonic presentation, not so tubey and more neutral and linear at frequency extremes than your typical tube amplifier. I would not call their presentation 'lean' in an objective sense; but 'leaner' and slightly 'less wet/liquid' than the typical tube amp.
and Ralph's customer support is 2nd to none.
I suppose I would say that the Berning 211/845 is a more sophisticated, liquid, refined, and holographic in it's sound than the big Atma's, and has more meat on the bones, but it's much more limited as to speakers it can really control. the MA2 Atma can work in large rooms and real world speakers, whereas the big Bernings are more a super great amp for horns or close to 100db efficient speakers. it did seem to work well on my 97db, 7 ohm MM7's too, until directly compared to my dart monos. and the big Berning is almost twice as costly as the Atma MA2's. note I have no experience with other, more powerful, Berning amplifiers.....which are good matches for harder loads.
the perfect pairing for the 211/845 Berning is the Avantgarde Trio's; a match which Ricky Brown, the Berning guy, strongly recommends.
Why did you not keep the 211/845 Bernings?
I never owned the Bernings; or even had intent. Ricky Brown offered to bring these beautiful amplifiers to my room for me to hear with no obligation or request on my part; so who was I to refuse? he was great; I had them in my room over 2 days and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I think Ricky wanted to know how his amps would work in my system. and they worked great. how many large scale/truly full range systems can even consider a modestly powered amp like this one; the MM7's offer many amplifier possibilities other mega/uber speaker systems can only dream about.