Final port in the acoustic storm was the VTL room. Located just outside the barriers through which visitors had to pass to gain entrance, this was the only game in town before the show opened at 10:00AM, while everyone entering the show had to pass near the room, making it difficult to miss. Unlike many of the other rooms sprinkled about the ACV, few people missed this one.
The room itself provided a space that, at first glance, appears almost ideal by convention hall standards. A rectangular shape with no large areas of glass, no immediate neighbours and that rarest of things within the ACV, solid walls. The obvious choice for system setup would have been firing the speakers down the long dimension of the room. Unfortunately, positioning of the entrance at one end and a fire door at the other made that impossible, so the speakers had to be set up along the long wall. That resulted in a wide speaker stance with the front-row of seats pressed up too close to the speakers and, in many cases, so far from the sweet spot that you lost any of the benefits of stereo. Sit further back in the second or third row and the integration and sound-staging improved dramatically.
Göbel names its speakers after hereditary titles, but VTL favors names inspired by Wagner’s operas, at least for its flagship models. The Vienna Opera was offering Wagner’s Götterdämmerung and Das Rheingold during the convention, while VTL did its Wagner thing by presenting the new Lohengrin Mono mono-bloc amplifiers, finally in production form. VTL played prototypes last year in Munich, and I had recently listened to the finished amplifiers on a similar system at Luke Manley and Bea Lam’s home, but this was the first time the finalised casework and internals (especially handsome in the black finish) have been seen in the European wilds.
What struck me listening to this system, with its many familiar elements, was just how well the latest VTL tube amp stacked up against the increasingly fine sound of the best solid-state offerings. For most of my life the contest between tube and transistor sound has been totally one-sided, with tube sound the clear front runner for my tastes. It was not so long ago that tubes still dominated shows like the High-End. I can recall years past when it seemed every other major set up featured top of the line Audio Research gear. But more recently, that contest has pulled, if not level, then close enough to make even the most diehard tube lovers question their loyalties. Amplifiers like those from CH Precision or Vitus (and now, Constellation) have established not just an enviable standard of musical performance, they’ve become the benchmark choice for many exhibitors.
As I sat down to listen to the Lohengrins on the several occasions I visited them during the show, I was reminded once again just why the sound of tube amps has such musical appeal. The amps were driving Wilson Audio Alexx V speakers and whenever I was in the room, Bea Lam was playing classical music on vinyl, via the SME 25 turntable and Lyra Etna Lambda SL. Phono-stage was VTL’s TP-6.5, mated with the TL-7.5 line-stage, all linked together with Nordost’s Odin 2 cables, a tried and trusted combination that didn’t disappoint. With scale, colour, dynamic shading and a ready sense of musical flow, the system sounded magnificent, despite the limitations imposed by the room. Listening to cut after cut, the Lohengrins reminded me of what always drew me to tube sound. The latest solid-state offerings aren’t going to get it all their own way, with VTL’s newest mono-blocs definitely raising the vacuum-tube game.
