fwiw.. i have to completely disagree with Jtinn, specifically the statement: "thin sounding, tonally inaccurate, hotter than a radiator with bloated bass as
well as a huge noisefloor". that is a total bunch of concocted rubbish. my close friend owns Genesis 201's, and he tried a plethora of expensive amps to find the best for the mid/tweet panels. among those in his home audition were the VTL Wotans, ARC Reference 600 mkII, and the ARC Reference 300 mkII's. First we tried the Wotans.. while they sounded pretty good, they had a recessed midrange, which with the 201's midrange ribbon, was not good at all. then we tried the Reference 300's.. wow! these sounded great with the panels. Then we tried the Ref 600's. This was rather interesting. While the Ref 300's sounded a bit better in producing "bloom", they were actually slower during transcient attacks through the Gen ribbon's. We concluded that the larger capacitor power reserve in the 600's controlled the mid/tweet panels in the Gen's much better than the 300's. As far as tonality, the Ref 300's had a slight improvement over the Ref 600's.. I would attribute that to the newly designed JFET/6H30 input stage,
but neither amps had any tonal "anomalies". We also noticed that the 600's ran fairly cool with the easy to drive mid/tweet panel load. We were able to turn the fans down with the variable control because the tube output heat wasn't that bad with the panels. in the end my friend and i both agreed that for the genesis 201's the Ref 600's controlled the panels with better authority and accuracy than the Ref 300's.. and with the fans turned down the heat was a moot issue.. Good luck in your search!
well as a huge noisefloor". that is a total bunch of concocted rubbish. my close friend owns Genesis 201's, and he tried a plethora of expensive amps to find the best for the mid/tweet panels. among those in his home audition were the VTL Wotans, ARC Reference 600 mkII, and the ARC Reference 300 mkII's. First we tried the Wotans.. while they sounded pretty good, they had a recessed midrange, which with the 201's midrange ribbon, was not good at all. then we tried the Reference 300's.. wow! these sounded great with the panels. Then we tried the Ref 600's. This was rather interesting. While the Ref 300's sounded a bit better in producing "bloom", they were actually slower during transcient attacks through the Gen ribbon's. We concluded that the larger capacitor power reserve in the 600's controlled the mid/tweet panels in the Gen's much better than the 300's. As far as tonality, the Ref 300's had a slight improvement over the Ref 600's.. I would attribute that to the newly designed JFET/6H30 input stage,
but neither amps had any tonal "anomalies". We also noticed that the 600's ran fairly cool with the easy to drive mid/tweet panel load. We were able to turn the fans down with the variable control because the tube output heat wasn't that bad with the panels. in the end my friend and i both agreed that for the genesis 201's the Ref 600's controlled the panels with better authority and accuracy than the Ref 300's.. and with the fans turned down the heat was a moot issue.. Good luck in your search!