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For logistical reasons, I measured a different sample of the S-400 to the one BD auditioned. My sample had been used at the Home Entertainment Show last May and came to me following the Show, before its return to New York dealer Sound By Singer.

With its choices of unbalanced and balanced inputs, and triode or tetrode output-stage operation, VTL's S-400 is four amplifiers in one. To make measuring its performance feasible, I carried out complete sets of tests for both triode and tetrode operation in balanced mode, spot-checking some measurements via the…

"After one year of setup," Bednarski told me, "we debuted our line at the January '95 CES. You know, Victor and I came out of Hewlett-Packard, a real pay-as-you-go company. And that's how it is here at BAT—no outside financing, no debt, and, I'm happy to say, a loyal and growing customer base." BAT is one of the few high-end companies that can claim a genuine…

Sound
All of the BAT VK-D5's best qualities were those I most often associate with tubes…

Description: CD player with tubed output section using six 6922 tubes. Analog outputs: XLR and RCA. Digital output: BNC, 75 ohms. Output voltage: 2V (each phase). S/N ratio: 100dB. HDCD$r compatible. Power consumption: 150VA maximum.
Dimensions: 19" W by 5.75" H by 15.5" D. Weight: 30 lbs net.
Serial number of unit reviewed: 0D070075.
Price: $4500. Approximate number of dealers: 50. Warranty: 5 years if registration form sent in within 30 days of purchase, 1 year otherwise.
Manufacturer: Balanced Audio Technology, 26 Beethoven Drive, Wilmington, DE…

Designer Victor Khomenko goes through a lot when designing BAT products. For one thing, he "listens" to the circuit boards and components.

Victor: "We have to listen to the noise they make to know how they're behaving. Listening through a normal home audio system, you'd hear no noise and think everything's fine. But we have to go deeper than that. Like a doctor with a stethoscope, we amplify the completed boards to check their heartbeat and breathing. The nature of the noise tells us a lot. It should sound uniform,…

Most of the time the VK-D5 was wired up to the VK-5i preamp to take advantage of differential operation. Unsurprisingly, the two pieces mated beautifully. I wired up the front-end, the VTL Wotan amps, and the JMlab Utopia speakers with either Synergistic Research Designer's Reference or TARA Labs The One, with its multiple Isolated Shield Matrix Floating Ground Stations. The VK-D5 also served the Forsell Statement amplifier on the Radian HC speakers. (This combo must be heard to be believed. The Forsell's inherent bloom perfectly complements the HC's…

The BAT offered superb error correction, playing without skipping through the Pierre Verany test CD's track 33, which has a deliberate 2mm gap in the data. The BAT's output was noninverting from both single-ended and balanced jacks with the blue Invert LED off. (Pin 2 on the XLRs is wired to be "hot.") At 2.175V, the output level from the single-ended RCAs was 0.7dB higher than the CD-standard 2V. From the balanced jacks, the output level doubled to 4.36V. The single-ended output impedance was a moderate 882-908 ohms at middle and high frequencies, but rose to a…

Fig.6 BAT VK-D5, high-resolution…

The analog output levels of the $4500 Balanced Audio Technology VK-D5 and the $4950 Wadia 850 matched to within 2mV, so no additional level matching was necessary. All comparisons were done using the Levinson No.380S preamplifier. As well as side-by-side comparisons involving disc swapping from one player to the other, I used the BAT to drive one of the Wadia's coaxial data inputs via a 0.5m length of Mod Squad Wonderlink I fitted with BNCs. Interconnects were balanced: initially, the softer-balanced CZ-Gel for…