VAC 452 iQ review in Stereophile

[Carlos269]

Carlos, you obviously don’t get it... likely not one person here takes your position at all seriously, they’re just being polite because they love this debate indeed more than any other.

Everyone here has been down the little objectivist rabbit hole and back again more than a few times and I’d suggest all have left the naive basic measurements position in the lost and unfound box of overly simplistic notions on understanding how people hear and how they perceive.

It’s an achingly familiar ground hog day of tired old chestnuts and cheap grist for the mill.

I’d genuinely humbly submit that only an imbecile would actually use the word imbecile in a forum and think that made them anything other than an imbecile... having used the word three times now in brief succession I certainly rest my case lol.

There are few actively in this thread that can’t demonstrate considerable experience or would likely feel at all threatened by your position here at all. The arguments are all familiar and I’d doubt you’ll get many buying into these after years of most simply having tried and learned better.

To be honest I’d rather someone cough on me at the moment than go another round on this carousel again so I’m happily out but I’d also agree that if your looking to a fundamentalist objectivist platform here I’d suggest that you’ve signed onto the wrong roadshow.

Batter away, there’ll always be someone here who wants to take their wordsmithing ways out for a quick predictable spin or even some for another Quixotic marathon of most excellent windmill fighting.

Check out how long I have been on this forum, quiet a few years before you or Ron, I’m not a new kid on the block, but your point is well taken. I rather go back to listening to one of my “vintage” systems than to have a discussion with a wall.

I have been at this high-end audio game longer than most on this forum and started out where many stand today,. We have more in common than you might guess but a big difference is that I choose not to chase the big yellow bus every time it comes around!

Like Scientology,, you will figure it out some day.........or maybe most won’t. Never under estimate a scientific and logical approach when it comes to technical matters.

 

[analogsa]

Although I would not risk a technical explanation about it the Vivaldi DAC with its astonishing signal to noise ration sounds much "cleaner" and informative in detail and soundstage than any other DAC I have tried, even with noisy tube amplifiers.

It can be argued this is purely coincidental.

 

[morricab]

do the math on 200 steady state watts and a 97db efficient speaker. it would be like putting your head inside a jet engine.

Assuming no thermal compression on the drivers, yes...

 

[morricab]

I'm with Thomas Jefferson, a man to whom we owe the philosophical debt for this hobby and much of our life (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, actually borrowed from Locke - Life, Liberty, and Property) , that it's silly to argue about preferences.

As rational men, we need to state our preferences, trade-offs, and rationale, to help guide others in their decision making.

Ah but this is the question: Can science actually give us guidance on what we prefer??

For decades the engineers thought they had it figured out: Just make the distortion as low as possible and eventually it will be an almost exact copy of the input and we can stop...except that wasn’t what everyone (or anyone with good observational skills) heard.

This was kind of known on the fringes of the audio industry where some guys were trying (in somewhat crude fashion) to correlate distortion and sound quality. They were largely ignored. More recent efforts by Cheaver or Geddes are also not widely discussed. Pass has made some noise about and made the FirstWatt stuff as a result.

This has left the industry in a bit of chaos because the listeners aren’t really buying the pure objectivist philosophy anymore and old tech has come back with a vengeance. Why? Because a lot of it sounds REALLY good despite demonstrably higher distortion. Even the better sounding SS amps measure worse than ones even 30 years ago (A Crown or Hafler amp will get very low distortion). The darTZeel amps are some of the poorer measuring SS but by most accounts one of the better sounding.

The answer lies in psychoacoustics and s few designers are now realizing this. HOW you reduce distortion and the final pattern of that distortion matters. Since no truly linear amplification device exists , there can be no zero distortion amp. So how you hide the distortion relative to our perception matters more than the absolute amount of distortion. The type and it’s harmonic (and anharmonic) components will define audibility and character of the sound.

Us SET guys have known now for a long time that absolute measurements don’t tell much unless you dig deeply into them. Correlation to measurements shows that what type an amp makes matters more than how much and a monotonic (exponential) decay of even and odd harmonics seems to be closest to what we hear in the real world and is therefore preferable in the absence of truly linear amplification.

 

[morricab]

Kondo souga on a 97 db speaker is probably a wrong combination, just a guess as I heard neither, but viva on Alexandria, for sure, a SS will be better suited for the speaker.

Funny enough the old X1s, which were a true 95db and easy load, sounded awesome with 30 watt KR Audio amp. Later X series got harder to drive...

 

[morricab]

You simply are not accepting our standard of subjective proximity of reproduced sound to the sound of acoustic music performed live.

I didn’t realize that was your standard Ron. I mean I know I have been touting the “closest to live “ as my reference but a lot of people here disagreed that this should even be a goal of audio and that you just have to think it sounds “good” whatever that means.

 

[morricab]

I'm old enough to remember when the whole tube world went Halcro, too. How did that end up.

Audiophiles are fickle.

They read too many reviews and if they had just listened most wouldn’t have switched...

 

[tima]

having used the word three times now in brief succession I certainly rest my case lol.

To be honest I’d rather someone cough on me at the moment than go another round on this carousel ...

Oh, go ahead and go for four.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Whats wrong with Halcro .

Defintively ranks among the best in SS terms in my world .

All subjective preference its all it is .

 

[morricab]

Whats wrong with Halcro .

Defintively ranks among the best in SS terms in my world .

All subjective preference its all it is .

One of most sterile amps I have heard...

 

[pjwd]

One of most sterile amps I have heard...

In these virus inflicted times sterile may be good !
Seriously though I am a long time Halcro user and I don't get the whole sterile argument . I find they give an exciting lifelike ( insofar as possible in reproduced sound) presentation. What do you mean by sterile - could it be pour source and speakers being exposed

Phil

 

[andromedaaudio]

I like this new VAC design visually .
I like vertical designed power amps like ML 33, halcro dartzeel 468 etc .
I ve never had a good listen to a VAC amp , i was supposed to go to the munich show this year .

 

[Leif S]

VAC sounds incredible with Von Schweikert. Show after show, it's one of the rooms that is guaranteed to sound like music.

Does anyone know if Von Schweikert develop their speakers with VAC?

Another speaker that sounds incredible with VAC is NOLA. Carl Marchisoto used to show his stuff with ARC Ref 75, which may be the best amp ARC has ever built, and he always got incredible musicality. But he has recently switched to VAC due to their even superior musicality.

On the other hand, one could easily do a quick compare of VAC and Soulution on top Focals at prior RMAFs. The rooms were next to each other and nearly identical, for years. In one system, the Focals had committed analytical SS sins, in the other, the typical syrupy tube sins. Overall, mediocre sound unless one used the most pristine recordings.

I am surprised that Mike's system at 97 efficiency doesn't let VAC shine through. I wonder how much the speaker design has to do with all of this. Carl M designs his with tubes.

Anyways, that's why I love very high efficiency speakers and SETs. Tube glory, tone, and dynamics with a handful of watts. Have your cake and eat it too!

Hi Ceasar,

The answer to your question if I develop our speakers with VAC. The answer is no. I would have extreme difficulty with this and I will explain why. I have NEVER heard the ULTRA 11 or any of the speakers I have designed sound like they sound with the VAC Statement electronics. And this surpasses anything we have produced at an audio show. I always start with Class D amplification and work my way up the chain to Class A SS. When we are happy with the results we then switch to the VAC electronics. If I started with the VAC electronics it would really mess with me. Once we put the VAC electronics on it is difficult to switch back to SS without stepping away for a while. I do not design with VAC. But it is my reference 100%. Jack's ULTRA 11's are awesome with his CH electronics. Soulution, Audionet, Constellation, Dartzeel, and several other SS amps work great on our speakers. But with an ULTRA 11 you really need to go TOL to get the most out of them.

All the best

 

[Leif S]

It is personally (and idiosyncratically, I realize) very interesting to me that Michael liked the VAQ 452 iQ as much he did, compared to his reference darTZeel NHB 468s. I enjoy reading about how and where Michael calibrates various tube, hybrid and solid-state amplifiers on his spectrum of sonic attributes.

At this level of top-of-the-line amplifiers I think it is totally a matter of personal subjective preference. In my brief comparison at MikeL's of older generation VAC 450s and his then-reference darTZeel NHB 458s a couple of years ago I would have chosen the VACs as my "keepers" and MikeL clearly preferred his 458s.

Also interesting to me is that Michael apparently preferred these new VACs over the VTL Siegfried IIs he compared directly to his darTZeel 458s several years ago, as I sense that he did not rave about the Siegfried IIs quite as effusively as he praised the VAC 452 iQs. Putting it differently, I read this review as suggesting that Michael enjoyed the VAC 452 iQs compared to the 468s relatively more than he enjoyed the Siegfried IIs compared to the 458s.

Consistently, it seems, Michael Fremer and MikeL both ultimately come down on the solid-state side of the tube/solid-state dividing line on the amplifier spectrum. I still come down on the tube side of that line.

Of course Michael was using different speakers then, so these idle speculations may be entirely spurious and invalid.

Don't forget that Michael didn't have the Statement Tube Line Stage from VAC either. I do believe there can be a magic when both amp and pre are from the same designer.

 

[Leif S]

agree, it's not that i need 100db/110db of volume, it means when i am playing music at 'live' levels the system can have that 'jump' factor and vivid naturalness and be full frequency and everything holds together and scales effortlessly. each musical thread is able to fully propagate. the sound stage is continuous. nuance, tone and timbre all in play. no congealing or sense of hesitation.

big tubes when pushed begin to gloss over detail and nuance; once that starts to happen i lose a degree of musical involvement. i get bored, want to turn it down. it's not fun.

i want to have fun. and since i can have fun.....i do.

I totally agree and desire that same sound. The VAC does all of that on our speakers. No loss at concert volumes with plenty of power in reserve.

 

[Leif S]

notice that Jack makes a strong point of how he prefers big solid state on his Von Schweikert Ultra 11's. it's not that VAC is not excellent....it's that top notch big solid state is better overall in the right system.



and exactly the same with me.

no one is dissing big VAC's.

but there is better. if the system is set up to take full advantage.

In all fairness, Jack hasn't heard his ULTRA 11's with 4 -452 music blocks and a Statement Line Stage. Just saying
But he does know our speakers better than most and has a lot of experience with VAC. Just boils down to preference and that's all that matters. I'm just happy we can all enjoy music to this level

 

[bonzo75]

I am quite convinced that tube power amps need a clean sounding SS pre like Soulution, possibly CH or Dartzeel or spectral, when used on cones. They will also add to separation and drive and take out the muddiness. Micro will benefit on his Wilson with both lamm and VTL using this strategy.

 

[morricab]

I am quite convinced that tube power amps need a clean sounding SS pre like Soulution, possibly CH or Dartzeel or spectral, when used on cones. They will also add to separation and drive and take out the muddiness. Micro will benefit on his Wilson with both lamm and VTL using this strategy.

Disagree...you will throw the baby out with the bath water and a good tube pre will have the needed precision and separation (The Aries Cerat Impera II is a good example).

 

[bonzo75]

Disagree...you will throw the baby out with the bath water and a good tube pre will have the needed precision and separation (The Aries Cerat Impera II is a good example).

So which tube amps did you listen to with which SS preamps on cone speakers?

 

[Leif S]

So which tube amps did you listen to with which SS preamps on cone speakers?

I've done a bunch myself. I actually prefer a tube pre amp with a SS amp vs SS pre and a tube amp