2. amps-preamps
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Vecteur I-6.2 Integrated ?

I currently own B&W N-803s and a Rega Planet 2000 player. I started testing a bunch of integrateds to drive the N803s.
My listening room is 13' x 17' x 8.5' (Rear wall has a 9' X 7.5' opening, right wall has a 4 x 7.5' opening, left wall has 2 3' x 5' windows heavily drpaed). I prefer listening to jazz, classical and rock at mostly low volumes. My room has a few acoustic treatments - drapes over 2 windows, wall to wall carpet, a couple of tube traps etc. I like a well - defined soundstage with reasonable width and depth and good precision of image (well who doesn't :-)), reasonable bass slam (prefer finesse over muscle) and linearity (little or no compression) even at low volume (under 9 'o' clock).
I demo'd the following integrateds and I found that in my room with my setup (no offense to anyone else that may own these fine integrateds):
1. NAD C370 maintained good tonality, but produced a flattened soundstage and sounded compressed at low volume, reasonable midrange but not good detail in bass and highs.
2. Bryston B-60 - very harsh sounding on trumpets etc., reasonable soundstage, compression at low volume , reasonable detail.
3. Mac 6500 - somewhat warm, but didn't quite like the sound.
4. MF A3.2 - lean sounding, slightly bright, not enough bass.
5. MF A308 - sounded robust, good bass slam but bass was not clearly delineated and highs rolled off. Good soundstage otherwise.
So I come to my question finally:
Have any of you listened to the Vecteur 6.2 ? A friend of mine pointed me to it, unfortunately I have no way to demo it (friend lives in California and I am in New England). I spoke to Mutine (the distributor) in Montreal and Pascal was more than kind to explain a lot of things to me and I must admit the Vecteur sounds good (on paper... atleast). Other than a single (exceptional) review by Neil Walker, I haven't seen anything else on this amp. Do you have any other suggestions ? If a bunch of you think the Vecteur is worthy, I may drive up to Montreal (speakers and player in tag) to demo the amp. Mutine unfortunately does not have a return policy and no dealers in New England. The B&Ws are somewhat tough to drive, even if they are 90db sensitivity, 8Ohms nominal impedance, they dip down to 3 Ohms and from what I've seen they prefer a high current amp with atleast 125-150 wpc into 8 ohms, both channels driven... My budget is ~$3k and I prefer to buy a new amp. If I have left out any relevant details let me know. I appreciate your input.
playhard

Showing 1 response by allizze2

allizze2
3 posts
 
Hello, having just bought a vecteur i6.2 and l4.2 a few weeks ago, I can share my experiences.
I wanted to upgrade my Cambridge a500, cd 500se kit from my student days driving infinity il40's and I planned on keeping the infinity's for a while, changing the electronics.
I listened to a bunch of stuff
mf 3.2 kit
moon nova and i5
Arcam A85 and cd 72-cd 92
Bryston b60
Rotel amp and pre amp (forgot the model number)
Linn ikemi and lk 140
Sugden masterclass
yba gear

I listen to very varied music and I wanted something at ease with a piano concerto at dinner and with some trip hop during a party.

To my hears, it came down to the vecteur completely blowing away anything else I listened to. The soundstage was wide, the dynamics were there, it had the oomph to drive the infinities but most important, it just sounded right. This is by far the most musical gear I listened to.

So... back went the Quad gear and now I own the I6.2 and l4.2 and the music is all there.

So if you can, go give them a listen, trust your ears, for mine, this was the kit to buy.

Charles
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