ARC Reference 110 vs older ARC amps eg VT150

I respectfully disagree with Nsgarch. The VT150 was very impressive in its day, but ARC has surpassed its sound with many amplifier models since.

The VT100mkII and VT200 (very similar designs) are faster, tighter, and more extended. The next generation VT100mkIII and VT200mkII are even better sounding still, with improved detail, high frequency refinement and openness.

The REF110 is in another league still. It is much more transparent than any of these amps and has a more liquid, open, grain-free presentation. It is also more dynamically free and effortless sounding.

Hearing the VT150 today after being spoiled by 4 generations of newer ARC amps leaves it sounding a bit veiled, slightly grainy, a little soft, overly round generally, and tubby and less extended in the bass by comparison. That's not to say that the 150 is without its own charm, it's still a very special amp compared to many others. But with that charm comes with significant coloration, lack of control and loss in transparency by today's standards.

This wouldn't be as important to someone who is used to more colored tube sound or older gear generally, but the original poster is already spoiled by his current LS26 preamp, which is very similar in terms of character and transparency to the REF110...and very different sounding from the older VT150.

I'm an ARC dealer

The VS110 is ARC's entry level, unbalanced 100 watt tube amplifier. It is virtually identical sounding to the smaller VS55 aside from power.

How does the VS110 sound? Very nice, if rounder and less transparent than ARC's balanced amplifiers.

A Richard Vandersteen preference, which I agree with, is to get two VS55's and run them as balanced monoblocks. Very cool.

Each VS55 is normally a stereo unbalanced amp. To convert a VS55 into a mono balanced circuit requires that you have a balanced preamplifier and make two special set of "Y" interconnects.

Lets look at one channel for this example. Coming out of your preamplifiers right balanced XLR output, your cable would have to be terminated with a female XLR at the preamp end and then two RCA's at the destination end, which would plug into the two RCA inputs on your VS55. One RCA would represent PIN 2 (non-invert) & Ground, while the other RCA would represent PIN 3 (invert) & Ground. Balanced connections used to be more commonly terminated this way (two RCA's rather than an XLR).

Now your VS55's left channel circuit will carry the non-inverted leg of the balanced signal, while the right channel circuit will carry the inverted leg of the balanced signal.

The last thing you need to do is properly connect the speaker wire to the outputs. You will no longer be following the normal connection practices as labeled on the back of the amplifier. Here's what you do:

First tie the two 4 ohm taps together with a piece of wire. Then connect your right channel speaker (+) wire to the "Right" channel 0 ohm tap and then the negative (-) wire to the "Left" channel 0 ohm tap. Viola! You now have a 100 watt, truly balanced mono amplifier.

Warning: this really works well with speakers that are 8 ohms and don't dip too much below that. It's not a good idea with lower impedance speakers. For example, it works very well with Vandersteen Quatros which never go much below 7 ohms.