Bat vk31se and vk120 vs Simaudio I-7

Hello Jmarshak,

I would have to agree with Jfrech on this. One guy I know who moved away from BAT for something supposedly better only found himself down the road coming back and saying it was a mistake. Wish you all the best with whatever you decide on.

Good luck,
Tom

Supposedly the Karan is heavily biased into Class A. Having seen one, it has a huge power supply, and I mean huge, for an amp of this size. My DNA-125 has probably only 1/3 of the available current with the stock transformer.

I have one of the Karan integrateds on order to try in my system next week. I will be trying it against my Herron separates. I will let you know how it works out....

Thanks Trcnetmsncom,

It’s definitely not going to be easy to upgrade from the BATS. Ultimately, I don’t know if I will. So far, they sounded like 'cleaning dust from the instruments' compared to anything else I tried at home (compared to SS only thus far). Very musical amps. Perhaps going up the BAT preamp line is the best way to go in the future but I am still hoping for a cheaper alternative :). I want to look into cabling and room treatments before doing anything else. My room may be too live. I think I prefer a dead room with higher resolution and base response. I plan on adding a few panels at time, staring from the front...

Dawgcatcher - Sounds exciting. Wish you luck and look forward to your observations...Thanks.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to draw comparisons to your BAT separates, but will borrow my friend's ARC separates as well for a head-to-head in my system.

I have put the Karan I-180 (the newest version) into my system, running it against the ARC LS26 and SD135 combo on loan from a dealer, as well as my McCormack DNA-125 Gold and Dehavilland preamp combo. I picked it up for a demo based solely on recommendations from people I trust, which is probably how most people find out about them. This is definitely an integrated that you should check out. The Karan was both more detailed (I am hearing tons of things in the music that were never there before)and more "tubey/musical" sounding than either of the solid state amp-tube preamp combos. The McCormack and Dehavilland were bettered slightly by the ARC combo (more detail, sound is a little less lush and more accurate) but the Karan goes way beyond either of these: it has better control of the speakers, more accurate bass, more natural, and really shows off good recordings vs. mediocre ones. I have had some pretty nice separates in here for demo recently (Herron separates, Classe CP-700 mated with the McCormack) and they each beat my setup by a small margin, but the Karan is in a whole different league. They are tough to find though. Now, I just need to get my wife to let me keep it.....