Audio Research VT130, VT100 MkII or VTM120?

I'd buy the VS115 over a VT130se anyday.
Or maybe a pair of Manley Snappers!!
I have a friend who had a VT130SE and bought a pair of Snappers and was blown away!
P.S. He is a multiple Grammy winning Sound Engineer!

I had a VT 130 and it drove my Wilson Witts very well. IMHO one of the best deals out there. As to the 130 vs 130 se....I'm not an electrical enginer, but I had inernal pics of both and compared side by side. Didn't see much of a difference. Yes there are the meters, but the plain vanilla 130 is more bang for the buck.

I moved on to VT 150's mono's. While they are nice, I think I would have been better off sticking with 130's and using the $$ to buy concert tickets instead.

^^^^Reguarding the meters on the VT130SE. One is for line voltage, the other is for tube bias. So, they are not the more typical Vu meters that bounce around and no one really knows why other than they look neat and cool to some people. - like allot of Carver products for example.

The VT130 images well but compared to ARCS newer designs,the bass control is considered weak.It was designed in the 90's.As for price,I don't think their a bargan at $3000.They seem to be living on their past reputation.

I've owned a boatload of amps over the years; ranging from Cary 300B and 805 to Krell KSA 50s to Odyssey Stratos, TAD Hibachis, Bel Canto, Quicksilver, etc etc etc.
Over the past 15ish years, my VT 130SE has probably logged more hours than all the others combined.

For what that's worth.

Marty