ARC VSi60 vs Ayon Spirit II/III

I agree with Pehare and would go with an amp offering triode operation. Also, I prefer to be able to manually bias my tubes. The Spirit III has added auto-bias, so for me, I would go with the Spirit II unless there were some other compelling reason to go with the Spirit III.

Note too that I have not heard the ARC and do not intend for my remarks to be a comment on its sound qualities. I have heard a Spirit I and liked it just fine once the stock small tubes were replaced with some NOS tubes. The power tubes were Gold Lion KT88 and they were fine.

Neutron,

I'm glad that my comments are helpful, though I sure don't think of myself as an Ayon subject matter expert. It has been fun playing with that little Spirit-1 though, I like it a lot.

There's a Spirit-2 listed now on Audiogon at what I think is a very fair price, but the seller requires pickup in New York City.

Charles1dad,

It sure is! My friend got his Spirit-1 with Gold Lion KT88 tubes for a few hundred less than that, but I think it's a great price for a Spirit-2 with Gold Lion KT88s. I'd drive a couple of days to get it.

Neutron,

I took a Spirit-1 home with me over the holidays for a buddy to audition in his home. I listened to it for probably 12 hours over the holidays; my buddy several hours more. We were both very impressed with it. The amp will be part of his home office system - it's a small room with solid walls. It's a lively room for sure.

Here are some comments:

His current system: Denon PMA 2000-IV; Rega Saturn CD player; Audio Magic Sorcerer speaker cables and interconnects; Silverline SR17.5 speakers he got from me - I changed out the stock capacitors for Duelund VSF copper; resistors are Mundorf.

Listening to the Spirit was his first experience with tubes.

- Upon listening to the Spirit, he said, "I only thought I knew what texture in music sounded like."

- He also said that the amp made the music so "soulful."

-We had to swap out the Audio Magic. It was too sibilant. We ended up with Kimber 12TC speaker cable and Hero interconnects.

- I had taken some NOS RCA 12AU7 tubes with me, but the stock EH tubes seemed a bit warmer, so we left those in for the moment. I was actually surprised how good the EH's sounded. I think he may end up with an RCA for the signal tube and Mullards for the driver tubes.

- The amp is stone cold silent. There is virtually no hiss coming through the speakers. I turned the volume up all the way and put my ear next to the tweeter. No hiss at all. This amp is very quiet.

- I don't know if it is the Class-A output stage that does it, but this amp is very smooth, detailed and very musical. But then again, his system is very transparent.

- At one point he asked why anyone would not listen to the amp in triode. He liked it that much.

Here's my take though: The Spirit-1 sounds great; it is a very musical amp; it's a serious 30wpc.

We found ourselves playing the system way too loud for such a small room. But it was sooooo clear that we didn't realize how loud it was until one of his daughters came in and asked why we had it so loud.

And the thing is built like a tank too. I would be curious to hear what Ayon considers the improvements given in the Spirit-2, but the Spirit-1 was very nice! But as I mentioned before, I'd pass on the Spirit-3 - I'm just not too keen on autobias.

Neutron,

I was just on the Ayon website and noted mention in the Spirit-III specs of auto and manual bias. I'm not sure what this means, but maybe it's that one can bypass the autobias circuit. They also also mention that they use an "intelligent" auto bias circuit, so it may be an okay system.

My buddy back home initially decided not to get the Spirit-1. This was based not on the sound but for other reasons. During my drive back, however, he called me and said that he was reconsidering his decision. All of this meant that I ended up with the Spirt-1 for the time being, so I hooked it into my system when I got home last night.

My system:
Rogue M180 monoblocks w/ RCA NOS small tubes
Rogue 99 Magnum preamp w/ RCA NOS tubes
Silverline Bolero speakers
Kimber KS3035 speaker cable and Kimber Select interconnects
Rega Saturn CD player

Compared to the Rogue gear the Ayon was more textured and more extended in the high frequencies. It is a very, very musical amp. 30wpc in my large room, on the big speakers, had the expected limitations, but it sounded nice. Switching to pentode helped, and I was quite impressed with the amp in that mode. It wasn't quite as holographic at triode, but it sounded really good and I could live with it there.

My impression of the Ayon can be summed up as: clear, textured, soulful, very musical. I suspect that Class-A output stage and zero feedback design have a lot to do with what I hear through the amp.

The only thing that I wonder about is their customer service. I wrote them an email with a question about the small tubes. They wrote back but didn't quite answer my question. I have a few more questions so I may get back in touch with them. But the bottom line so far is that I think their not answering my question was inadvertent - but they did write back!

But that aside, in terms of the sound, I really like the amp and if I could afford it at the moment I would seriously consider their monoblocks or largest integrated.

I'm curious though about the system on which you will audition the amp. You mentioned a dealer about a day's drive from you. Will you listen to their components or take some of your gear with you? Or will they let you demo it in your home?

If you are going to demo one of the dealer's systems, could you give them a call and post what speakers, wire and source they would use?

I just found a Soundstage review of the VSi60. It mentioned that it has "less than" 7dB negative feedback and weighs 35lbs. I like the fact that Ayon has no negative feedback and weighs about 65lbs. I want to make it clear, however, that I have not heard the ARC piece.