ARC VSi60 vs Ayon Spirit II/III

A buddy of mine here on agon (the_kid) has had GP's for years & ran them w/a cary sli-80 & really liked the combo but has since moved onto a Unison integrated i believe. i used to have the ARC vsi55 that i bought new w/my present speakers & it didn't have good synergy...it had plenty of punch but came off dry & not quite 20/20 vision if you get my drift. for my money i'd go w/the Ayon for the triode mode ability & more user friendliness...i.e. fused power tubes being the most important along w/conventional knobs instead of the push button ARC & my guess better sound.

I agree with Pehare and would go with an amp offering triode operation. Also, I prefer to be able to manually bias my tubes. The Spirit III has added auto-bias, so for me, I would go with the Spirit II unless there were some other compelling reason to go with the Spirit III.

Note too that I have not heard the ARC and do not intend for my remarks to be a comment on its sound qualities. I have heard a Spirit I and liked it just fine once the stock small tubes were replaced with some NOS tubes. The power tubes were Gold Lion KT88 and they were fine.

Hi Folks,

Thanks again for the input.

Pehare, I do agree about the ARC being a bit dry. At the same time, I was very impressed with the punch of the ARC, and I did enjoy the time I had listening to the vsi60 (which was matched with the Ayre CDP I have, and a more or less comparable pair of Sonus speakers). Of course, listening in my space would be a very different experience.

Reynolds853, I agree with you and Pehare with regards the availability of running in triode. The auto-bias on the Spirit III is not a deciding factor for me.

Bottom line right now is that I still haven't auditioned the Ayon, and so none of this will be resolved until that occurs.

Once again folks, thanks.

Neutron,

I took a Spirit-1 home with me over the holidays for a buddy to audition in his home. I listened to it for probably 12 hours over the holidays; my buddy several hours more. We were both very impressed with it. The amp will be part of his home office system - it's a small room with solid walls. It's a lively room for sure.

Here are some comments:

His current system: Denon PMA 2000-IV; Rega Saturn CD player; Audio Magic Sorcerer speaker cables and interconnects; Silverline SR17.5 speakers he got from me - I changed out the stock capacitors for Duelund VSF copper; resistors are Mundorf.

Listening to the Spirit was his first experience with tubes.

- Upon listening to the Spirit, he said, "I only thought I knew what texture in music sounded like."

- He also said that the amp made the music so "soulful."

-We had to swap out the Audio Magic. It was too sibilant. We ended up with Kimber 12TC speaker cable and Hero interconnects.

- I had taken some NOS RCA 12AU7 tubes with me, but the stock EH tubes seemed a bit warmer, so we left those in for the moment. I was actually surprised how good the EH's sounded. I think he may end up with an RCA for the signal tube and Mullards for the driver tubes.

- The amp is stone cold silent. There is virtually no hiss coming through the speakers. I turned the volume up all the way and put my ear next to the tweeter. No hiss at all. This amp is very quiet.

- I don't know if it is the Class-A output stage that does it, but this amp is very smooth, detailed and very musical. But then again, his system is very transparent.

- At one point he asked why anyone would not listen to the amp in triode. He liked it that much.

Here's my take though: The Spirit-1 sounds great; it is a very musical amp; it's a serious 30wpc.

We found ourselves playing the system way too loud for such a small room. But it was sooooo clear that we didn't realize how loud it was until one of his daughters came in and asked why we had it so loud.

And the thing is built like a tank too. I would be curious to hear what Ayon considers the improvements given in the Spirit-2, but the Spirit-1 was very nice! But as I mentioned before, I'd pass on the Spirit-3 - I'm just not too keen on autobias.

Reynolds853,

Thank you so much for the color. It's very important for me to hear just the kind of things you've been talking about.

Though I'm familiar with, and have owned ARC in the past, I'm just getting a real great gut feel about the Ayon.

Again, this will all flush itself out once I get some time with the Ayon. I live iin NYC, and the nearest dealer is a day trip, and so needs some planning. Wish it was as easy as jumping on the subway, but alas, NYC doesn't have everything, contrary to the beliefs of many.

Thanks again for your insightful, considered, and experiential thoughts about the Ayon.

Hope you're (and everyone else is) enjoying a great holiday season.