I have the VZN 160 "Grand Marquis" monoblocks and have enjoyed them now for about a year. They are big, beautiful amps which compete with the best in virtually all important ways and sometimes (when provided with the appropriate signal) exude a purity and cleanliness of sound that will give you shivers. Won't drive low impedance speakers well (bass especially goes away), but from 6 ohm speakers up, they are jewels. Still, not necessarily for everyone. You are required and given easy means of biasing the tubes at every sitting. It's not hard, nor does it take very long, but for some it will be too much of a pain (like having to deal with LPs). I do both and find that once one develops certain habits, the task of biasing becomes something of a comfort - knowing that you can check and insure proper bias at any time, especially when your household electricity is fluctuating all over the place, as mine does. You are also able to adjust the amount of feedback, and it is surprising how much one can affect the presentation by doing so. I don't fiddle much. I've dialed in the feedback that provides what I consider the best sound from the whole system and rarely revisit this control. Again, it is a nice feature, since it allows you to account for different speaker characteristics. On top of it all, Jud Barber (the designer and maker) is a jewel of a guy (sorry about that), and a valuable resource. As I said before, these amps aren't for everyone, but I love mine and think they deserve the limited amount of praise they've received (from HP) and much more. If you have specific questions about these amps, feel free to e-mail me direct. I'll answer what I can. Ron Yee
