Manley Snapper or VTL ST 150

Dear friend,

if you looking for the muschle of SS and immediacy of tubes MANLEY is your brand, no dubts! Passive preamp and Snapper is a great couple in terms of music pleasure and are very electrically compatible... RECOMMENDED! Enjoy! Francesco

The ST 150 is very good in triode mode, but I didn't think it drove the Vandersteen 3a's very well (which are not very efficient...I think they're in the 87dB range or so) except in pentode mode, which I didn't like much. My impression was that there was too much slam in pentode, and a loss of delicacy and some detail...but that's hardly a surprise. Also thought that the VTL was a little dry in the upper mids...massed strings were sometimes not presented in a luxurious fashion. I got a 2nd hand ARC VT100 MKIII and was happier.

I don't see how anyone could that strings were, in any way, inaccurately represented by VTL. Maybe it wasn't the VTL you were hearing, because this is a strong-suit for VTL.

I personally have listened to the st-150 and the st-85, in home for extended periods, and the one characteristic that stood out to me most was string instruments, and mid-range to upper mid-range. So my experience was quite the opposite on different speakers of course-805s and Wilson Benesch ARCs . Both of these monitors sound simply incredible with both of these amps behind them.

In fact, these amps sound much better than the previous $10K SS amp I had in my system prior to them.