Audio Research Vs115

Smatsui, I'm sorry to read about your troubles. It's hard for me to react to your situation, other than I'm glad you found an amp that suits your needs.

Just a couple of responses to your last post. Yes, the power tranny does get quite warm, but that is normal for the VS-115. As far as humming is concerned, I wonder out loud if what you heard was the power caps charging. I've heard humming too at start up, but it goes away pretty quickly after warm up. Perhaps Gary (Hifigeek1) could add another comment or so to put your observations into perspective.

There are no reliability issues with that amp that I am aware of.

My VS115 is one of the earlier ones with the 6550's. At some point I will upgrade the tubes to KT120's. I've also blown one of the resistors in the amp. I ended up replacing the resistor myself--it's a 10 minute job if you know how to solder. Apparently this is a common problem.

Other than that, I love this amp. When I put it in my system, it totally changed the sound of my system in the area of midrange accuracy, imaging, and 3-dimensional soundstaging. I was using Classe solid state electronics before.

Compared to some tube amps, this is a very wideband amp. With laboratory test equipment I have measured its frequency response into an actual loudspeaker load as flat out to 20 kHz and -3 dB at 50 kHz. This probably helps account for why this amp does not sound rolled off in the highs and has very good detail.

I also have an LS-27 and Reference CD-7, so you can see I am sold on ARC.

Jake, what loudspeaker did you use when you tested the VS-115's FR? Also, what output taps did you use?

Bifwynne - The speakers under test were Thiel CS2.3 driven from the 4 ohm tap. The CS2.3 are a notoriously difficult load for amplifiers, with large swings in impedance over frequency and a minimum impedance of 2 ohms. However, the Thiels and the VS115 match up extremely well, far better than with solid state amps. I currently have the Sonus Faber Cremona M and get pretty much the same results with the VS115.