VAC preamps - too expensive?

You should buy something else instead of whining.

If that is not apparent to you it is to me.

vac makes great gear, has for decades, kevin hayes is a brilliant designer, a perfectionist (and a very nice, stand up person too) - i still own a set of his 4-chassis pa90c amps, which was one of the very small handful of original tip-top rated amps by harry pearson at the outset of the absolute sound ... that amp put the kevin and his company on the map, and the rest is history

vac prices are very high (always been), but there is clearly a market, of well heeled aficianados who value the outstanding performance, looks, engineering and build quality, and are willing to pay for it

if the price is too high for you, don’t complain and make a stink, just buy something cheaper, that fits your budget and sensibilities -- no shortage of very good performing tube gear out there priced at more ’affordable’ levels - rogue, quicksilver, primaluna, jolida, raven, dsachs and so on...

’why are porsches and mclarens soooo damned expensive, folks who make them are just arrogant jerks... i hate them...’ 😠😠😠

I have owned my VAC Cla 1 MK II for 20 years. Back then I believed to get to the end game faster, so I did. I pick it up this week after getting it upgraded to Mk III status so I am now set for the rest of my lifetime for a pre amp. I also have the VAC Renaissance 70/70 Mk II amp which I will be dropping off to them in January 2023 to get upgraded to Mk IIII status. And that will be all I need for the rest of my lifetime. I may be venturing into getting some very nice 300 B tubes for it next. Got my eye on some PSVANE ACME 300 B’s. I have to get out of my chair to change the volume on each of the volume pots, one for each channel. I don’t mind. Funny, same goes for all the vinyl enthusiast, each time they swap an LP, it’s really no big deal right? Most of my digital front end is now current and replaced with current designs in the past year as well as new speakers. I am engaged with my system each time I see those tubes glow, I just stare at them as the music flows, sounds wonderful to me still after all these years. VAC makes solid stuff and stand behind it after decades.

Aside from all the coloration VAC does it's a nice preamp.

They need to modernize their functionality.  They have a home theater knob on the front of the box and yet the remote can't control input selection.  I believe volume can be controlled by the Remote.

I think they're losing a lot of business unfortunately maybe they don't care.

Aside from all the coloration VAC does it's a nice preamp.

They need to modernize their functionality.  They have a home theater knob on the front of the box and yet the remote can't control input selection.  I believe volume can be controlled by the Remote.

Could you better describe that "coloration" from your listening experience, or are you just echoing someone else's opinion here?

This thread keeps going, somehow. You're not in the target market for a Master: an upscale, analog purist, hand-wired 2ch audio preamp with no digital control chips or volume and absolutely minimal relay switching (just the Mute control). I'm in their target market; I bought one. I actually DON'T want a Master with "modernized" features - that's not what core VAC is all about.

A far better match for your use case is an Audio Research Reference 6 or 6SE - these too are wonderful units, and I also own a 6. But here too you complained about "too many tubes". The 6H30 is long lived and ultra reliable. The single 6550 should be replaced every 1000 hours. This is minimal maintenance IMO. 

The Master has only 2 tubes because it uses Lundahl input and output transformers to handle the I/O loading. You either need to look for other tube designs using that approach (which is relatively rare), or (more likely) pivot to SS preamps.