BAT Equipment vs Audio Research

Hello Pipes, Wow this thread is right up my alley. Over the years I have compared ARC to BAT and in all honesty to my ears it wasn't even close! Before owning BAT gear I had countless ARC tube pre-amps and amps and I don't want to over state my enthusiasm but IMHO the Bat gear won by a WIDE margin. I now own a VK-50se, VK-60 mono blocks ( hope to upgrade to the VK-150se mono's ) driving Eidolons. My front end is a ML-37 transport and a ML-360s DAC. I don't have a lot of time now to get into the details but if you care to e-mail me direct I would be happy to respond to you sometime over the weekend. Best of luck, Tom

Hi Pipes, A thing you might want to keep in mind about the BAT amps is that eventually you can run 4 of them. This would double the wattage, joules, and cuts the output impedance of the amps in half. Im sure this would take care of any concerns about the frequency extremes and dynamic peaks. I recently talked to a dealer who carries both BAT and Atma-Spheres and he likes the BAT more. Posters with Eidolons, please post your opinions of how well the VK-150se drive them in comparisons to other amps you might have tried. Thanks to all, Tom

Hi Jtinn, IMO the VK60 mono's already ( if I may borrow your words) spanked the ARC VT200. When I did the comparisons the ARC had a grainy sand like midrange compared to the BAT. Dynamic shifts from pp to fff and anything between much to my surprise was faster and more startling with the BAT. Soundstage was also deeper and wider with the BAT with images that had AIR which gave them a sense of reality. For me the VK60's had the "magic" the ARC couldn't touch. The only area where the ARC outperformed the BAT was in overall dynamic peaks for a sustained period of time. Even in the bass while the ARC had more punch the BAT had better texture, space, and detail of the instrument in ?. Beleive I wanted to like the ARC it was a little less money and almost twice the power. The new VK150se from what I've heard from a few others is supposed to be on a whole new level. I look forward to the day when I can hear them in my system. All the best, Tom