VAC Statement Phono Stage

FrantzM said:

If there is a justification for the price, it was provided to the manufacturers by some posts. Is this Phono Stage superior to anything else costing much less? Such questions need to be asked... The answers/comparison do advance the SOTA wherever it is at this point in time. What doesn't is blind acceptance of price as an indication of superiority. If a person feels no need to ask and just is able and willing to acquire any gear whatever the asking price, more power to her/him and his/her bank account. For the vast majority of audiophiles those are becoming increasingly pertinent questions with the ever increasing prices for dubious to vacuous increments in performance.

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Well if I were to be interested in this unit, I would definitely require a 2 week return period, if said phono stage didn't deliver the goods compared the my $11k phono stage. Nothing like comparing in your own system.

FrantzM said:

No doubt the inside is eye candy but .. Come one people!! To paraphrase Jeff Fritz: " Madness"

I mean really.. Of course it extracts so much more from the groove of any LP ... etc .. Couple that with a 150 K TT plus a $15,000 Cartridge mounted on a $35,000 Arm on a $15,000 Isolation device connected by 10,000 K of IC and you have
$275,000 Just for the LP section ...

Am I the only person to find this ludicrous?

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...as opposed to a $275,000 sailboat or Ferrari? would spending that same money on those other pursuits? or maybe a wine collection? be better?
i'm not saying that's what it takes for tip top vinyl. i think quite a bit less.

my point is that really beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to having fun. you could say that anyone doing anything for that kind of money is crazy.....but to single out vinyl lovers is not right either.

turntable said:

Hi Mike, I did not comment on its sound, as I have not heard it. I am sure it sounds superb, just struggling to find 50k's worth, whereas there has been 20 pages on the pricing of a 35k tonearm.
I hope the transformers have plenty of Silver as that goes some way to justifying expensive phono's like Ypsilon or Kondo.

Cheers

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sorry.

i was not intending to infer that you did comment on it's sound, sorry if you read it that way. i was only trying to give my own comments qualifications.

Mike Lavigne said:

...as opposed to a $275,000 sailboat or Ferrari? would spending that same money on those other pursuits? or maybe a wine collection? be better?
i'm not saying that's what it takes for tip top vinyl. i think quite a bit less.

my point is that really beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to having fun. you could say that anyone doing anything for that kind of money is crazy.....but to single out vinyl lovers is not right either.

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Indeed as opposed to a Ferrari. If the Ferrari does not handle well or has its butt kicked by a Subaru then it is not worth much, it better perform as well as a possible. There are metrics and subjective evaluations and frankly a good body of parameters (objective or sometime not entirely so) that describes its performance. If it doesn't meet or surpass these (and more), Car enthusiasts will be the first to laugh at it.
Arts and performance are two different things. An Art piece purpose is not to perform. It is to simply exist. if you do compare a Phono source with Art .. Then anything goes and soon Bose and Prada will join to make one We, audiophile are likely to reject it but you never know... Remember our reaction to the Gold B&O. We derided it

Audio gear have a purpose or the last I heard one i though they did. If the idea is whatever the price regardless of performance or if it is expensive then it is best..then I repeat anything goes. There is no criterion. Verisimilitude be damned: it is in my eye , me the beholder, the person able to acquire it... I am not sure we fully abide to this notion but it seems very convenient toward the rationalization of purchases and that of the "preference"philosophy, forgetting that those preferences are within a set of parameters related to the verisimilitude to real musical sounds. I will be the first to admit that those parameters are not all objective. Some are.

P.S .. Not deriding Vinyl Lovers Mike. Simply that this flight toward ever increasing prices need to be questioned. Has there been new advances in circuit designs? breakthough? New parts? Suddenly..Cost of material? R&D? Or is it just a case of market segment that has proven to be inordinately tolerant to price increases? IOW basic marketing: Whatever the market bears? it seems to me that is the case. I must however say that the reaction to the Vertes arm was different... For a second a thought that we might have reached the limit of elasticity ... Apparently not. It will settle and soon we will accept arms costing $100,000 and more without skipping a heartbeat, since it allows their owners to "have fun".

To bring back the ferrari analogy...in the end hi-end sports cars provide limited enjoyment when it's a street only machine. One has to take it to the track to enjoy it's full potential and I can say from experience the potential difference is huge between street and track. Those that can afford the uber expensive stereo can enjoy it's FULL potential on a daily basis, 24/7. You can't do that with a sports car.

Does VAC have a line stage that is in the same league as this, or is this the beginning of a new premium line? I knew he was working on a 'statement' phono stage. I'll refrain from making any judgments about price or value, and am going to stay away from Ferrari analogies. (Though I generally agree with Christian, the street cars are far too heavy and lux for real track work).

rockitman said:

To bring back the ferrari analogy...in the end hi-end sports cars provide limited enjoyment when it's a street only machine. One has to take it to the track to enjoy it's full potential and I can say from experience the potential difference is huge between street and track. Those that can afford the uber expensive stereo can enjoy it's FULL potential on a daily basis, 24/7. You can't do that with a sports car.

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There is an assumption that the uber-expensive equipment performs better. It is not necessarily so. Such thinking to me is naive. We audiophiles, ultimately assume that more expensive means more, better or superior performance. We may refute and claim the contrary but we do. We also assume progress when more often there are only change or differences, what I call lateral moves. For audiophiles, the next move is systematically more expensive.. always and ever. be it in electronics or accessory. The manufacturers oblige and so do we, the ever-elastic market, up to the limits of our spending abilities and even there... We will find ways to increase our spending even if it is for what we consider, now "second best". In this light our beloved manufacturers are seen as gentle people who only have our enjoyment at heart and are able to continuously refine their ware, always at an increasingly dear cost. We don't want to see them as the businesspersons and entities that they are whose purpose is to increase their worth and fortune. meanwhile the entire High End ecosystem makes sure that this goes on... if you are to believe what they write or claim, the progress is continuous and never ending. Really ???? .. Allow me to be skeptical.

whart said:

Does VAC have a line stage that is in the same league as this, or is this the beginning of a new premium line? I knew he was working on a 'statement' phono stage. I'll refrain from making any judgments about price or value, and am going to stay away from Ferrari analogies. (Though I generally agree with Christian, the street cars are far too heavy and lux for real track work).

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Yes VAC will have a matching line stage; VAC already has the VAC Statement 450 and that will be updated with the optional biasing circuit.

The phono stage won't be available til Q2 (?); I'm hoping to get my hands on one for reviewe when the phono stage becomes available.

MylesBAstor said:

Yes VAC will have a matching line stage; VAC already has the VAC Statement 450 and that will be updated with the optional biasing circuit.

The phono stage won't be available til Q2 (?); I'm hoping to get my hands on one for reviewe when the phono stage becomes available.

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Excellent Myles

It will be interesting to read how it sounds.

too much $$$ for a PS

just read in JV's CES article that this phono stage is now 70k.

"madness"- to quote Frantz