Elephantears
15-07-2016, 13:11
VAC Auricle Musicbloc Valve monoblock amplifiers. Fully serviced, and boxed, in superb condition. £1550 plus postage or collected from SE London.
Wonderful sounding 70W per channel valve monos designed to get the clarity of 300B amps with the power and authority of KT88s. These can use KT88, KT90, or KT120. And they really look fantastic.
The great thing about these amps are that they are powerful enough to use with insensitive speakers (I've used them with 86dB Harbeths) but they are so subtle and quiet they work superbly with very sensitive speakers. The clarity is exceptional, and whilst they have better resolution and clarity than any amp I've had before (valve or solid state), they have all the magic with voices and instrumental tone that we look for in valve designs. I've also used them with Vaughan Cabernet 1, which is very much a full range speaker, and they had gripping live dynamics.
This review is a nice summary.
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Iss...ac_auricle.htm (http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue26/vac_auricle.htm)
The current VAC amps are extremely expensive, so these are an ideal way of tasting the magic of Kevin Hayes' designs at a relatively affordable price.
I will supply them with 4 x Philips ECC82 input valves and a virtually new matched quad of KT120s. I also have some KT88s and if you prefer we can discuss that option. The KT120s do work very well.
Input Impedance is 100Kohms, which gives most preamps an easy ride, but they are not very sensitive so do like a reasonable amount of gain from the pre-amp. I used them with an Audio Research LS26, which was a very good match. I also briefly heard them with a Shindo Aurieges, which sounded great; a very seductive pairing.
Biasing is done manually by the easily accesible dials on the front panel. They have taps for 2, 4, and 8 Ohms, which makes them extremely flexible.
They are reassuringly weighty, due to very substantial output transformers, but they don't get hot (except for the valves) and they run quiet.
The service was done by the peerless Graeme at Ampregen, who made some subtle improvements, such as extra damping to make them even more quiet.
Finally, VAC are one of the most helpful companies I've come across; the designer, Kevin Hayes, is very patient with any questions and an all round good guy of the industry.
http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb412/andreweastham/IMG_8199.jpg (http://s1204.photobucket.com/user/andreweastham/media/IMG_8199.jpg.html)
[http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb412/andreweastham/IMG_8196.jpg (http://s1204.photobucket.com/user/andreweastham/media/IMG_8196.jpg.html)
[http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb412/andreweastham/IMG_8197.jpg (http://s1204.photobucket.com/user/andreweastham/media/IMG_8197.jpg.html)
Wonderful sounding 70W per channel valve monos designed to get the clarity of 300B amps with the power and authority of KT88s. These can use KT88, KT90, or KT120. And they really look fantastic.
The great thing about these amps are that they are powerful enough to use with insensitive speakers (I've used them with 86dB Harbeths) but they are so subtle and quiet they work superbly with very sensitive speakers. The clarity is exceptional, and whilst they have better resolution and clarity than any amp I've had before (valve or solid state), they have all the magic with voices and instrumental tone that we look for in valve designs. I've also used them with Vaughan Cabernet 1, which is very much a full range speaker, and they had gripping live dynamics.
This review is a nice summary.
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Iss...ac_auricle.htm (http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue26/vac_auricle.htm)
The current VAC amps are extremely expensive, so these are an ideal way of tasting the magic of Kevin Hayes' designs at a relatively affordable price.
I will supply them with 4 x Philips ECC82 input valves and a virtually new matched quad of KT120s. I also have some KT88s and if you prefer we can discuss that option. The KT120s do work very well.
Input Impedance is 100Kohms, which gives most preamps an easy ride, but they are not very sensitive so do like a reasonable amount of gain from the pre-amp. I used them with an Audio Research LS26, which was a very good match. I also briefly heard them with a Shindo Aurieges, which sounded great; a very seductive pairing.
Biasing is done manually by the easily accesible dials on the front panel. They have taps for 2, 4, and 8 Ohms, which makes them extremely flexible.
They are reassuringly weighty, due to very substantial output transformers, but they don't get hot (except for the valves) and they run quiet.
The service was done by the peerless Graeme at Ampregen, who made some subtle improvements, such as extra damping to make them even more quiet.
Finally, VAC are one of the most helpful companies I've come across; the designer, Kevin Hayes, is very patient with any questions and an all round good guy of the industry.
http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb412/andreweastham/IMG_8199.jpg (http://s1204.photobucket.com/user/andreweastham/media/IMG_8199.jpg.html)
[http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb412/andreweastham/IMG_8196.jpg (http://s1204.photobucket.com/user/andreweastham/media/IMG_8196.jpg.html)
[http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb412/andreweastham/IMG_8197.jpg (http://s1204.photobucket.com/user/andreweastham/media/IMG_8197.jpg.html)