ARC VSi75SE v. MF Nu-Vista 800

Hi cundare2- I have a couple of vsi75s paired with Proac 1sc bookshelves and d48 floor standers.  I recently auditioned the i50 prior to picking up the second vsi75.  Tonality was similar but I thought the vsi75 was more resolving and capable.  Sound quality aside, the other issue with the i50 was that it appeared to be manual bias only, whereas the vsi75 has individual bias for each kt150 that can be adjusted quite easily with the included plastic screwdriver.  Hope that helps and good luck with the search. 

classicalreflections:  So you're saying that the biasing procedure is much simpler on the VSi  than on the i/50?  You don't have to open up the chassis, clamp probes onto a resistor, etc.?

@ghdprentice To be clear, my comments were specific to the i/50. It’s in a very competitive price bracket and I don’t think it’s a particularly good value given some other tube integrateds in the same ballpark. Apart from that, I am a huge fan of the Audio Research sound. I have owned VSi75 and GSi75 in the past and enjoyed them. But, IMO, the real magic starts at and above units retailing for > $15K.

I also love their preamps and consider them to be some of the best you can buy regardless of price. In fact, I might be getting the Ref 6SE in the near future.

Having said that, Audio Research doesn’t have a monopoly on ’natural musical perspective’, and neither are the AR owners the only ones who understand natural music :) There are many ways to get there.

Also, I'm not a fan of the Luxman sound in general. But it was a very good pairing with Harbeth M30.1. Not so much when I got the HL5+, which IMO and unlike other Harbeth models, is better driven by tube amplification.

In SS, I much prefer Accuphase and Vitus. You really get the best of both worlds, i.e. tube and integrated with these two brands.

@cundare2 Please keep in mind that my experience was/is with Harbeth M30.1 and SHL5+. It is quite possible that C7-ES3s are a different animal altogether. I have owned P3esr and 30.1, and still own SHL5+ (home office) and 40.2 (main system). Incidentally, the C7s are the only ones I didn’t like when I auditioned them. But later, I heard a pair at a friend’s house and was quite impressed. I can only assume they were not driven properly when I auditioned them in person.

The reason I proposed a stout SS amp to drive them is because I believe the Harbeths already give you a tube-like presentation on their own. Adding tubes (with the exception of SHL5+) or warm sounding SS can be too much of a good thing. Secondly, they really shine with a ton of power and current. I agree that the sound can be more than adequate with many amps including INT or XA25. I was quite happy driving the 30.1 with tube amps and even PL INT-25 and told myself that it couldn’t really get any better. But once I put the Luxman in the system, the synergy was off the charts. The Luxman’s lively presentation was a good balancing act given the slightly darker sounding character of 30.1s. It was also better than the Pass Labs INT-25. If you are sold on Pass Labs, then perhaps INT-60 might be a better option to really give them the current they are craving for. So yes, the lower-powered amps can be ’more than adequate’ but IME more power allows them to reach their full potential.