Vincent Audio SV-500 Arriving Today

Another happy camper with a Vincent SP-331 amp. Sounds very natural, organic and slightly warm paired with a Schiit Freya and Vandersteen 2Cs. I'll be VERY surprised if you don't love it.

Tom

OK, received the amp yesterday and here are my initial impressions so far (after playing some music for a few hours last night).
I liked the build quality front to back.
First: CD that I popped in, Dire Straights Brothers in Arms SACD..Listened to the whole album.

Sounded really good (even though the amp had not really had a chance to break in yet). I felt, maybe in my head, that I could hear more of the music compared to the Denon.
Second: Played a few Vinyl Tracks of Daft Punk, Random Access Memories using my Denon TT with the built in Pre-Amp (first time I tried the built in Pre-Amp) The few tracks that I listened to, sounded really good to me. Did not particularly feel it was much different from the Denon.

Third: Went back to regular CD. George Michael "Turn a Different Corner" and a few tracks from Enya...with these 2 particular CD's...I didn't feel it was much different from the Denon.
Fourth: Played a few DSD Files. Mix between a couple DSD256 Files and Norah Jones DSD64... Still could not feel much difference from the Denon.
So Far, the Vincent definitely sounds good...but not dramatically different from my existing Denon.
Even through my Denon is about 20 years old now and a AVR, it is no slouch as it was top of the line back in it's day and highly regarded.
What I am afraid of is since the Denon is high quality in it's own regard, maybe to really experience a mind blowing or dramatic difference, I would need to move really far up the chain to get that difference.
A difference that would be way out of my budget.
Note this is not a negative towards the Vincent, as it sounds great so far.
I think it's just making me appreciate the Denon all that much more.
But I still have to evaluate for another week or so and then decide if I stay with the Vincent or not.
So many Amps.....So little time....

Considering that it's a hybrid amp, I'm surprised that you don't hear more of a difference, for better or worse. I guess give it a little time.

@jay73                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Some Amps can take a long time to run in, so as suggested give it some time.

Personally don't know your Denon, but appears it may be a good one.    

Of course there's always the question of System matching/synergy, Cables etc. to be considered.    

If it’s one thing I noticed from listening to Vincent amps is that they are very warm sounding. As I remember, the older Denon stuff is also voiced towards the warm side. So, even though the Vincent is a much better amplifier than what is in the Denon receiver, it is likely a very similar sonic signature. If you are looking for something with much more of a "wow" factor, the Vincent is probably not the right answer. Vincent will give you a very refined and smooth sound, but very warm sound as well (definitely laid back). It actually reminds me a lot of the older B&K amps (they were very warm sounding also).

If you decide the Vincent is not exciting enough for you, I am actually thinking the Yamaha integrateds are going to be too much on the "solid state" side. I would recommend you look at the Rotel RA-1592 integrated. In my opinion, it’s a much more refined sound than the Yamaha and it’s a lot more dynamic than the Vincent with more resolution. I am very impressed with the Rotel stuff for a budget level audiophile offering. It’s in the same price range as the Yamaha’s your looking at. With 200 watts per channel, it give significantly more power than the Yamaha/Vincent/Denon equipment. It has a pretty good DAC and also has a phono input (so you don’t have to use your Denon receiver for turntable duty).