I called Vtl today and spoke with Bea. She was very pleasant to speak with and quite knowledgeable on their products. I was surprised that on the gen.1 even though there are xlr plugs it is not a balanced input. She asked what type of speakers I would be using these on ( IRS Betas) she recommended 450 Gen 3 or something above and did stress the point of the low impedance loads the Betas present to the Amps.