Considering switching from Audio Research to PrimaLuna, troube with VS115 amp

It was a fun time. We had six people in attendance. I had the $8500 VSI75 set up, a DiaLogue Premium integrated ($3399) with KT150 tubes (add about $400) and an HP integrated ($4399). All of them had been on for days, all had tubes that test new. All of them sounded fabulous.

At first we listened unblinded, and I think everybody liked all of them, but no real conclusions were made. I had a feeling people were being effected by what they THOUGHT should sound best.

So I decided to make it a blind comparison by blocking the amps from view with cardboard and when I switched from one amp to another I asked that people look away so they could not "figure it out". I played the DiaLogue w/KT150’s first, the HP second, then the VSI75, and asked them to pick their favorite. The votes were as follows:

DiaLogue Premium w/KT150’s 4 votes
HP with stock EL34’s 2 votes
VSI75 0 votes

But don’t read too much into that. This is not to say it’s night and day between any of them. The VSI75 is fabulous...especially if you leave it on a lot and it’s hot.   I use an HP at home with KT150's and it's amazing.  But it's not night and day from a stock one with EL34's.  It's a small nudge.  
   
I would be ecstatic with any of them, and would prefer them to a stack of reference solid state separates.


I want to thank all those that attended including Bob Levi from the LA Orange County Audiophile society.

Kevin,

Just wanted to thank you again for your hospitality and openness to organizing this shoot out. I will put together some thoughts and post in a while.

Thanks to Kevin for hosting an enlightening demo. Well done.

I chose the PL w/KT150's as the most pleasant of the 3. All shared more similarities than differences, and I could be satisfied  with owning one of them.

Oh, I do(PL HP)The PL did have more weight in the low end. The mids and highs were more difficult to discern with my tinnitus, but I will say it simply was more convincing(most realistic)

I'm distraught by the difference the $14K Focal Sopra displayed over my $3k speakers! I know...silly. Kevin, can I demo those Sopra's for a couple months?

We listened to SRV's "Tin Pan Alley" at a nice level(not ridiculous loud) and all 3 amps were great. This wasn't a "what's best"  test.

Kevin also gave us an under the hood comparison on build quality. The PL looks just as good as higher priced gear.

My thought BEFORE the demo was the VSI75 wasn't going to present something the PL didn't have. Confirmed.

The demo has made me think twice about trying the KT150 in my amp. I use 6L6G's which I have preferred over the EL34 or KT88. 

Hello pokey77-I was the stand up guy. Which other listener are you?

Hi Table Jockey,

I sat in the middle on the back row and then when we shuffled I was the guy on the front right near the equipment racks.

Not wanting to restate Kevin’s comments, I’ll just try to add to them; I’m certainly not as succinct as he is as you can see by the length of this post. Before getting started with the listening, Kevin reminded us the purpose behind this shoot-out was simply to compare the three pieces of equipment and to do it in the spirit of fun and openness. And that’s just what happened. Kevin was a truly great host and he had nothing but good to say about ARC gear during the entire get together. He never tried to persuade us or nudge us in any direction.  As you can or may have read earlier in the thread, he even mentioned how good the ARC integrated sounded after being left on for a number of hours.

To start, Kevin used his IPhone to volume-match the three integrateds. I believe everyone thought this was a very important step to put all amps on an even playing field; secondly the same speaker wire and interconnects were used for all demo purposes keeping that game-field level. Kevin then proceeded to play the same Stevie Ray Vaughn track “unblinded” (Kevin’s term for us seeing the cable swap) through each of the integrated amps. After that first round, Kevin reminded us that someone in this thread asked that it be performed double blind. So he obliged and got out his official “double blind ” (and thickness!) Cardboard boxes and put them in up as walls in front of the amps for the next round. Everyone was asked to turn their heads away during the cable swap to each amp. Once Kevin played the same SRV track through each of the three integrateds, he asked for us to vote. Pretty simple – no smoke-n-mirrors or fast switches here.

I was genuinely surprised at the tallying of the votes; more voted for the less expensive Prima Luna integrated by a margin of two to one. Before I share my pick, I can tell you straight up, at least for me, that all three sounded more alike than dissimilar; better/worse, etc. For myself, I felt that both the VSi75 and the DiaLogue Premium HP sounded pretty similar. At times I felt that one was slightly better than the other. But really, there was no clear winner for myself, still I had to pick a winner. I had no horse in this race, I just voted based on sound. I did feel that the lower-priced DiaLogue Premium was not quite as good as the other two, but there was no huge chasm either, it was really quite small. So, in the end I picked the DiaLogue Premium HP in the blind test. It was hard to pick a winner, but then after Kevin disclosed the playing order, and taking into consideration the struggle I had to pick a personal winner, I also felt that the ARC integrated was very good as well. What got my vote was the DiaLogue Premium HP seemed to have a bit more air at times and the bass was a bit more controlled at times as well. But there was not a giant or even substantial difference between the top two. I know I could live with either integrated very happily. And yes, the HP wasn’t all that much better than its little brother the DiaLogue Premium, but at the price increment between the two, you’d second guess yourself every time you settled in to listen having purchased the lower-priced integrated; the price difference is worth it in my opinion.

And if all this were not enough, Kevin then took us back to his bench and took the covers off, so to speak, on both the HP and the VSi75 and explained what was going on inside. It was very interesting indeed. You could see the quality in both pieces and readily see the design philosophies of each company.

Finally, as a disclosure, I have no affiliation with Kevin or Upscale Audio, I’ve never been to his retail establishment, nor do I own any of the equipment listened to today or have any equipment made by those respective companies. I simply attended because I wanted to hear for myself the REAL difference between this gear; I was truly surprised at how little that turned out to be. –Kevin, I just want to say thank you. You’ve really shown how interested you are in good sound, so much so you took a part of your Saturday (and spent hours before in the week setting up) to share that all with us. I really appreciate that and I’m sure the other participants do to.

Tablejockey, your comments are appreciated and nice to have met you.