Vitus RI-101 Mk.II streaming integrated amplifier
Six years after Hans-Ole Vitus, the founder of Danish company Vitus Audio, visited the United States to premier his first three products at CES 2004, Michael Fremer went gaga over the company's top-line MP-P201 Masterpiece Series phono preamplifier. Thirteen years later, at AXPONA 2023, it was my turn to be blown away, this time by the sound of a $385,000 Vitus Audio top-of-the-line Masterpiece series front-end and amplifiers that sang through price-commensurate Estelon Extreme Mk II loudspeakers.
In betweenand not for want of tryingVitus's presence in these pages has been limited to show reports. It's time to change that.
Vivid Audio G1Giya loudspeaker
Over the years that I've been reviewing hi-fi, I've had my share of loudspeakers that drew comments from everyone who visited during the audition period. Some of those comments were about the speakers' appearance—most often about their size—and some were about how good they sounded. Vivid's G1Giya loudspeaker ($65,000/pair), its narrow-baffled, swirling cochlear shape molded from fiber-reinforced composite, elicited more comments of both types than has any other speaker I've reviewed.
Vivid Audio Giya G1 Spirit loudspeaker
It's been more than seven years since the late Wes Phillips reviewed Vivid Audio's top-of-the-line loudspeaker, the Giya G1, for Stereophile, and since then the speaker has been seriously revised. At first glance you still notice the sui generis form; closer inspection reveals fundamental changes that make it, in most respects, an entirely new speaker.
Vivid Audio Giya G3 loudspeaker
In February 2013, I was taking part in a "Music Matters" evening at Seattle retailer Definitive Audio, playing some of my recordings and talking about my audio philosophy. I love taking part in these eventsin addition to Definitive's, in recent years I've participated in evenings organized by North Carolina's Audio Advice, Colorado's Listen-Up, and Atlanta's Audio Alternativesbut, as might be obvious, at each one I use a system provided by the retailer. The February 2013 system comprised Classé electronics and, to my surprise, Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus loudspeakers.
Von Schweikert Ultra 55 loudspeaker
Achieving room-filling, high-quality sound in a hotel room is difficult enough. Getting it in a cavernous ballroom is even more problematic. Yet, over the past few years at AXPONA, RMAF, and most recently at the February 2020 FLAX (Florida Audio Expo), Von Schweikert Audio, in association with The Audio Company of Marietta, Georgia, has managed thatand, other than the approximately 100 bodies occupying every seat in the house, they've done it without any room treatment, or without any that I could see.
Voxativ Ampeggio loudspeaker
It wasn't so much a vow as a prediction: After selling my last pair of Ticonal-magnet drivers and the homemade horns I'd carted around to three different houses, I supposed I would never again have a Lowther loudspeaker in my humble house.
That remains literally true: The 7" full-range drivers to which I'm listening today are from a German company called Voxativ; the horn-loaded cabinets from which they play were also designed by Voxativ, and are made in Germany by the Wilhelm Schimmel piano company. And, with all due respect to Lowther, the 75-year-old English loudspeaker firm that launched a thousand DIY fantasiesnot to mention a thousand very lively wavefrontsthe Voxativ drivers and horns take the Lowther concept further than anyone else of whom I'm aware.
VTL MB-1250 Wotan monoblock amplifier
Most reviewers look for a "hook" or angle of some kind when it comes time to write a review. After all, how many ways are there to get excited about audio equipment? Kathleen and I like to focus on the human side of the High End. So it was with some amusement that I watched the obstacles swirl around what I thought would be a fairly straightforward review of the Vacuum Tube Logic MB-1250 Wotan monoblock power amplifier. My thought was to return from single-ended to push-pull with a bang! I'll say...
It all began at the January 1996 WCES, where I found my shorts positively welded to the listening chair during a memorable musical blast at VTL. Luke Manley and his extreme audiophile wife Bea had a good thing going and they knew it. People were talking. "Did you hear those monster two-storey VTLs on the Alón Vs?"
VTL MB-450 Series III Signature monoblock power amplifier
The VTL MB-450 series began life in the late 1980s as the Deluxe 300, a pair of which I once owned. Over the years the basic design has been improved and modified, in the forms of the MB-450 (1996) and the MB-450 Series II (which I reviewed in January 2008). The tube complement remains the same: eight 6550s in the push-pull output stage, a 12AT7 input tube, and a 12BH7 driver. Into a 5 ohm load, the MB-450 III is claimed to produce 425W in tetrode mode or 225W in triode, from 20Hz to 20kHz.
VTL Siegfried Series II Reference monoblock power amplifier
Big tube amplifiers were once scary monsters reserved for those who didn't mind heavy maintenance, careful tweaking, and the occasional explosion. Blown tubes required replacing, preferably with pricey matched pairs, then biasing with a voltmeter. Optimal sonic performance required regular bias monitoring and adjusting, and because of current surges on startup, you had to choose between leaving the heat-producing monoliths on, or turning them on and off for each listening session, thus shortening the life of the tubes.
Wadia 2000 Decoding Computer
Ain't technology grand! That's what I was thinking while driving to work this morning. Sure, the rain was coming down in buckets, but there I was sitting comfortably in a warm car, listening to music while making tracks at 50mph. A long way from horse-and-buggy days.