Experiences, good and bad, with VTL

Tube Research Labs is not out of business at all. I know because I am a dealer for them. So, im responding to rebut that. As a matter of fact they have just expanded to Cable Research Labs and they are making incredible leaps and bounds in that market now also. If you have any questions please feel free to call me for any more info @ 708-267-1588

I just picked myself up a pair of MB-185 Sig. mono's that are about four years old. I am the third owner, and was able to pick them up directly from the second owner, who had used them with no problems for a year. I put them in my system last weekend, and they only played for about 3 hours before they both went dead simultaneously. The weird thing is, it was the B+ fuses that I think blew, because the heater filaments still light up, but only an AC line/AC fuse event could explain them going at the same time. Since then, I've left two messages for Luke with no response, and although I've talked to Bea twice, she isn't up on the technical issues. She did tell me, however, that the B+ fuses, which are 1 amp, 250 volt, slo-blo types in my amps, are now in current production changed to 1.5 amp, 600 volt, fast-blo types. This is more in line with the fusing I've seen used on other fine tube amps. I really have a hard time understanding why, at VTL, only the company owner and president (Luke) is the one supposed to deal with customer technical support issues. He's obviously much too busy to give me kind of support I've always had available to me from Conrad-Johnson, for instance. I'm going to try to replace these fuses with 1.5 amp, 250 volt, fast-blo's for the time being, since new fuse holders are required to fit the higher voltage replacements, but I'm very curious what could have caused this to happen in the first place, and whether it will happen again. (BTW, the rest of the system works fine with my old amp, and no power line event was noticable at the time of the failure.) As for the sound, it's too early for me to have formed a real opinion, but they did seem big and powerful with good transparency, but somewhat dark and lacking in sparkle and air, and a little looser in the bass than I was expecting, but these may need fresh tubes. Anybody done the cap upgrade here?

Stay away from Vtl. I was the second owner of a Stereo 50/50 . When It was built they offered a "lifetime transferrable warranty"The first time the amp failed ( a popping noise) not only would they not honor their warranty but it cost $250 for new input caps.The second time it was a resistor that I replaced.Finally the right ouutput transformer failed. They wanted to charge me $400 for matched transformers.The irony is that the first time it failed I was auditioning a vtl 2.5 pre and St 85 amp. I would have bought them both if they had taken care of me.I bought a McIntosh pre and power instead. It was the best decision I've made in a long time. As for the Stereo 50,I sold it for parts/repair on ebay. VTL lost a customer for life!

Well, since this thread has popped up again, I should take the opportunity to update my above post. I finally talked at length with Luke Manley, and although he was cordial, he was not, let's say, the most forthcoming individual in his position I have ever spoken with at a comparable company. VTL's basic position seems to be, "Send us the amps, then we'll tell you what we think." Since I lack the original cartons, and live clear across the country, this is not what I hoping to hear first. He was grudging, at best, about offering any advice that could help me get the amps up and running again, wanting me to just send them to the factory. Since I hadn't yet properly auditioned them, I was, I think, understandably dissatisfied with this approach, not wanting to make a further large investment before getting a chance to really hear the things, so I declined his invitation.

My MB-185's happen to have been strangely modified by their first owner; he had someone (or himself, I really don't know) defeat their Triode/Tetrode switches, leaving them in permanent tetrode mode, with the switches removed and missing. Although I'm sure I would run them in this mode anyway, I would like to be able to restore the switches locally, just for originality's sake. VTL will give me absolutely NO assistance in accomplishing this, even (especially?) if I offer to purchase the new switches and/or diagrams from them. "Send them to us" is all I can get, at around $300 round-trip shipping, plus $120 for new cartons first, not including the actual repair and parts, and I'm sure many weeks of no amps. Most companies in my experience will sell parts and schematics no problem if needed; not VTL!

On a more positive note, I have installed 1.5a fuses in the 250v receptacles, along with doing a complete re-tube, and haven't had any more problems with shut-downs, and the amps now sound improved.

$60 each for cartons? that should tell you right there their attitude towards resales and customer service.