BAT VK-200, Plinius SA100 MK3, or Levinson 27.5?

The BAT is slightly dark-sounding, hard to describe but not as airy or sparkling as most amps. A great choice if your speakers or upstream components sound a little too bright. The ML 27.5 is a great amp and thought by many to be superior to their newer stuff. ML's seem to err a little to the "refined" side of things to my ears, almost too smooth. But again, many people love them for just that reason. YMMV.

What speakers and source components do you use? You need to match the candidate amp with the efficiency and characteristic of the speakers. For example, I had a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.8 speakers and the BAT VK-200 was not powerful enough to drive it.

My source is a Proceed CDD transport mated to a Levinson #36 dac and Cardas Quadlink cabling. My speakers are Tyler Acoustic reference system. They are a new line by Ty consisting of SEAS 10" and 7" bass and midrange drivers and a Scanspeak Revelator tweeter. I just retubed my preamp with NOS Type 2 tubes from Kevin at Upscale Audio.

Sam

System synergy is not always predictable. Certainly a manufacturer can attempt to match their preamp, amps and other components. I purchased a Classe CP-60 preamp, then matched it with a BAT VK-200. The combo works very well together. If you intend to purchase new, are you aware that the VK-200 has been replaced by the VK-250? From BAT's web site it seems that many features are similar but they have made changes. Output power is up, with the option of adding greater capacitance. The circuitry is now dual mono. And I believe they have upgraded some of the other parts. Weight is up from 58 to 75 lbs and the price from $3500 to $5000.

My system consists of: Marantz CD player, Krell truly balanced preamp, BAT VK-200, Tyler Taylo Reference speakers. The combo sounds smooth, excellent imaging, and much more musical with BAT VK-200 than Krell KAV250a. I replace the KRell with BAT.