Vtl 7.5 Mk II to III upgrade

KeithR said:

version IV i'm sure will put in 6H30s---so all these top flight preamps are pretty much identical

interesting discussion guys---didn't realize so may guys are using fewer tubes and more SS to get "more detail" or whatever. i wonder if this trend will reverse in the future (ie. why buy tubes if they sound SS). fwiw, i just had an ARC LS25 older linestage in my system and the FET based power seemed flat and non-organic. i wonder if this gets better at the Ref level, which used to use tube rectifiers (not sure about 3, 5 or Ann).

Miles- how big was the ART difference from series 2 to 3? Maybe the 2 is what i need to wait for used. the build quality on those pieces just seems hands down better than what is out today.

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microstrip said:

Keith,

I would not be so sure. Just because you found two top preamplifiers using SS cathode followers you can not generalize. IMHO, they are the exception, not the rule in tube preamplifiers.

ARC, Lamm, Allnic Audio, Atmasphere, Audio Inovations, BAT, Reimyo, just to nominate a few very expensive tube preamplifiers still use tubes in their output stages.

BTW, also IMHO, such thing as the 6h30 sound does not exist - I have owned cj's with 6h30 (ACT2 s1 and s2) and they sound quite different from ARC implementations, such as the REF3, REF5 and Anniversary REF40.

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JackD201 said:

$500 per channel for quality transformers? Yeah. Not bad at all.

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mep said:

Now that's a reasonably priced upgrade.

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