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Nolo Contendere- or rather Qualified Contendere

Posted by Bambi B (A) on February 12, 2010 at 07:49:26

In Reply to: VTL 2.5 vs ARC SP3A-1 or SP8MKII posted by Yada Day on February 11, 2010 at 21:43:19:

PHOTO: Audio Research SP8


Yada Day,

It's been a long while since I heard a VTL preamp or Audio Research SP3, but after owning an ARC SP8/II for 25 years, I'm still very enthusiastic abut it. There were qualities about the SP8 that I absolutely loved in the first few minutes I heard it [Well Tempered Turntable > SP8 > ARC D70 > Acoustat 2+2 speakers]. I bought an SP8 that had been upgraded from Revision 2 to Revision 4 plus an ARC D115, Oracle Deplhi II/ Alphason and Vandersteen 2C speakers. The SP8's wonderful natural timbre, discretion between instruments dynamics, soundstage, and sense of weight- it's not perfectly neutral but the colourations are the kind I like. I bought an Audio Research SP10 in 1987 to "replace" the SP8, but- made it impossible to sell the SP8. The SP8 is "forgiving" of poor recordings- and I listen for performance more than recording quality- while by contrast the SP10 relentlessly exposes the quality of every component and flaw in recordings. In fact I've sometimes thought to sell the SP10 when I was frustrated by the 6DJ8 family re-tubing difficulties, but never considered selling the SP8, which is 12AX7 based- many, many choices.

The SP3 has a kind of cult following, which I fully understand- it's a great bridge between the 60's McIntosh preamp sound- which I find a bit tubby and slow usually (I've had a 1965 MX110 preamp/tuner since 1990) and the modern austerity/neutrality of today. However, I think of the SP8 as the culmination of the direction the SP3 started and why not use the most evolved version?

With VTL, as mentioned, I haven't listened for years, but in the 80's and early 90's I heard them often and always liked the power amplifiers while the preamps thrilled me not- nothing terribly wrong but I put them in the Conrad-Johnson class of being comparatively slightly warm, sluggish, and veiled. The effortless quality of the SP8 while retaining a hint of liquidity spoils one quickly- and forever!

AS you can see, with apologies for being a bit dismissive of VTL preamps, my strong preference would be for the SP8/II. By the way, SP8's were not called MKI and II, they were called by revision numbers - Rev 1 through 3 were later called "MKI" and 4 to 7 are now "MKII".

A final word, I think an SP8- and probably the SP3 too are good investments. I paid $1,250 for my upgraded SP8 in 1985 and imagine it's worth that or more today- essentially free use for 25 years. How can you beat "free"? Mine still has by the way, the tubes put there by ARC at the time of the upgrade.

What system would your new preamp go into?


Cheers,

Bambi B

[ Audio Research: SP8, SP10, LS3, D115, D130 ]

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