Any fellow VAC Phi 220 owners out there? Thoughts?

Tvad, I owned the phi 110 and the ren 70/70's - while the negative feedback may 'tighten' the high frequencies, I lost some of the air and what I would call presence with negative feedback. Sometimes it was even recording dependent. I am not sure what to tell you or recommend. I know in speaking to Kevin he will tell you its system dependent. Perhaps you have some A/C line noise on the digital side? Also, the more 'noise' I have removed from my system the cleaner the high end gets and no need for negative feedback.

Another idea is the sistrum stand as it helped the treble quite a bit. Less grunge. I am not sure but tubes can be microphonic and perhaps the sistrum stand is eliminating/reducing the microphonics in the tubes, thus creating better highs...

Personally, I prefer a pre-amp for the dynamics/headroom...but going direct has its advantages and some mfrs are better at the analog outputs on digital gear these days...

You could go with a phi beta integrated :), like I did and forget about a seperate preamp and negative feedback!

Good luck. Let us know how it goes....

Tvad,glad you figured it out. I hope the adaptors work really well for you. I know on the 70/70 you could dial in the feedback, but on the 110 am not sure how much flexibility there is. It sounds like you are down to some really fine tuning of your system.

Do you use the RAL power cables as Fsarc does? I am using Sonoran cable as a power cable, but have found the Prana silver cable to be a really nice match recently with the VAC as an interconnect and speaker cable. So I am interested in the silver power cords by RAL (as the Prana are quite a bit more). I am waiting on a pair of Deva interconnect and speaker cable to be made for me as they are hand made cables. They were a really nice match in my auditioning. The new prana powercord is supposed to be really good, but comes in around $2k, which is more than I want to spend right now.

The RAL are working out quite well. I'm also experimenting with the Running Springs Duke power conditioner on my 220s. I'm running a Duke for each amp on its own dedicated 20 amp circuit (on opposite phases).

It's funny you mention the AirSine as I might be heading to a friend's house today to do a comparison on the RAL versus the AirSine. Granted, it will not be on my system with the VAC gear, but it might be constructive nonetheless.

I definitely prefer my 220s on the no feedback setting. When I start to add feedback, the music loses a lot of air and openess. It is like a veil has been placed on my entire system. It is still very musical, but in the context of listening with no negative feedback, the shortcomings are readily apparent. According to Kevin, the use of feedback is system dependent so let your ears be your guide.

I also have a Phi 2.0 Master Controller on the way! We'll see how it stacks up against the linestage section of the Meitner/EMM DCC2. The Phi amps have a lot of gain and I'm using the DCC2 at the very low end of its volume control (25-35 out of 99) so I'm not sure if that is having a negative impact in any way. Plus I'll be getting a killer phono stage which will leave me no excuse NOT to get a vinyl rig!