Life after DarTZeel

in the Stereophile test on the darTZeel NHB-108 stereo amp John Atkinson did measure 160 watts into 8 ohms prior to clipping. so the 100 watt spec is quite conservative.

i had the dart on the VR7SE's in my very large room for 5 months and i agree that it did a commendable job at real world listening levels. the dart will sometimes not be as macro-dynamic as some amps (on certain speakers) but it always is fantastic at the microdynamics....which is where the heart of the music is.

Mike,

I used the Dartzeel in stereo only. I see you use 2 stereo amps in a vertical bi amp config so your results would be much different and you looking at $50,000 worth of amps. If your happy that's all that matters.

As you can see the amp doesn't like being below 4 ohms.

Stereophile measurements

I measured 160W into 8 ohms (22dBW), 230W into 4 ohms (20.6dBW), but 162W into 2 ohms (16.1dBW). The manufacturer strongly recommends using the Lo setting if the amplifier is to be used with low impedances. However, the amplifier then delivers significantly lower power at clipping—43W into 8 ohms (16.3dBW), 68W into 4 ohms (15.3dBW), and 95W into 2 ohms (13.75dBW)—with no reduction in low-power THD.

"The Dartzeel lacked dynamics and bass control for me"

i really wonder what speakers made this happen to an individual situation. many many reports worldwide on the Dart108 having great bass.
was the low impedance setting tried?
that there are speakers which drop to 2.8 ohms and have an disastrous impedance phaseturn as well; just unbelievable in 2009 year. they did this in 1984 ok.
just look at the measurements in Stereophile by John Atkinson.
by all means just about all speakers have humps of 3 to 5 dB at the 100 hertz region, most speakers drop down to 2.5 > 3.5 ohms as if a common thing. the bad impedance phase behaviour upon that 3 ohm is just kill to any good tube amp.

back to topic.
i have owned the Stradivari as well for quite some time. many amps failed to drive it. in the end a big Accuphase really took it on.
have listened to some late model ML mono amps too, but i never experienced them as touching and moving.
for me they sound just the way they look. grey. ymmv.

Mike,
maybe the only SET amplifiers which can possibly make you sell the DartZeel 108 ..
to my highest recommendation, and out of real world experience with these beasts:
WAVAC 833V1.3
they can make time stand still at least it did for me.

I owned the darTZeel amp and preamp combo. I've since sold them both and moved on. They are a very emotion provoking combo. Most people who own the darTs do so on either Von Schweikert or Evolution Acoustics speakers. This is because JTinn the USA distributor used to sell VS before giving them up in favor of his own speaker company EA. Both of those speakers were designed by the same designer who designs very efficient speakers. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Avalon designs speakers that are not the most efficient. I own Hansen's. While they are an easy load to drive, they clearly will not sound their best without significant power. The darTs are nice, but they are very expensive for their power rating, and do limit your speaker choices to very efficient speakers if you want to really appreciate what you bought them for.

Repair issue is a valid concern but believe dartzeel are serviced in the USA.

In any event, Herve is very hands-on and will return messages super fast and of course so will jtinn

My Lamm amp was straight outta Brooklyn but my dealer was hard to find and the lamm always had a bug right before vladmir went on vacation or was going to a show. Vladmir is a nice guy but when my lamm amp had an intermittent noise and sent it back to him, he could not find the problem and
Insisted that the problem was in my other equipment or my room
After returning the amp, I diagnosed the problem myself and sent back to vladmir who then was apologetic and fixed it. This process took 6 months and finally I gave up on lamm even though the 2.2 amp was pretty sweet

As much as I liked the 2.2, the dartzeel just sounds better. It is picky about speakers preferring an efficient one but so what you only need one pair of speakers and then it will Sing! the synergy of the preamp with the amp is what makes it super special. The combo reduces me to tears sometimes it's so magical.

I agree that if someone put a gun to my head and made me sell one, I
Would sell the amp not the preamp. The preamp is so profoundly great and tested a lot of other preamps and nothin came close. At gunpoint, I could live with be forced to get a tube amp. But nothing would pry my hands off the preamp short of perhaps jessica alba (joking)