BAT SS power amps?

I had a BAT VK-500 and then a VK-600 driving Wilson Sophias in my system. And I would agree that their sound was not exactly warm but smooth and linear, great bass. The 600 improved on the 500 in dynamics and bass, detail, but in no way would I consider either the last thing in detail, especially in the area of soundstage size and transparency. In fact, soundstaging is both amps' achilles heel. Supposedly the VK-600SE improved soundstage air and dimensionality but I never heard it and the SE upgrade was $3300 plus shipping, not exactly a bargain in my book. I went to some Essence SS amps and promptly sold all my other amps, both tubed and SS.

I'm not so sure about statements that say the 500 or BAT in general is dark sounding, or has less than an abundant sound Stage. it's surely not my experience. I know it responds very well to pc upgrades. Adding solely a good pair of pcs changed the whole shooting match... more everything!

I've a mid sized room with speaker on the short wall of a 14 x 21 room and the SS extends past the side walls and out into the yard at times, given the track info being played. Imaging is good to very good all the time. Realism has gone up exponentially with the acquisition of the TA 1000 MK II, and so has the bass performance.

Double checking what's what I put my OEM cords back onto the 500 and using just a UPC 200 and Elrod Sig 3 pc... well I could live with that for a good while. In fact i have only a Taipan helix A supplying the UPC200 now. the EPS Sig 3 is on the Thor preamp... and even that combo is just stellar.

In comparison directly to price, in the 2500 - 3000 range, the vk500 is formidable competition. it's surely not the end all be all in resolution perhaps but I've not found it lacking there either. it does do justice to the musical info being supplied.

many if not all the amps listed right here can and do give good accoutings of themselves. their just a bit different here and there in this way or that. I'm just quite satisfied that it does what it does in such a way I want to continue to listen to the music, not it.

I think the best statement we make as audio nuts about a component is waht it takes for us to let it go. I've only heard a couple amps that flat out surpass the vk500, and not across the board in every respect, but for my money they do get by it. there easily well over twice it's retail price in one case, and half again in the other. ONe amp is tubed, the other SS. But that's just my take.

As for appearances, I don't put a lot of stock into appearances as some do. But the 500 has a bit of charm in it's chunky little rectangular body and doesn't draw much attention to itself with but two little offset blue 'eyes' peering into the room... maybe they could be made to wink now and then.

I'd be interested to hear other owners of BAT/Wilson combos - perhaps Rlawry's soundstage issues are a result of that particular synergy. I enjoy a reasonably broad sound stage with my 600SE. It is a more expensive amp (srp $12K) so that might put it out of reach; and to my knowledge I have never heard BAT driving B&W speakers.

I bought a VK500w/BP used and it was a great investment. I had it setup for a bit but, due to space constraints, it is boxed up right now waiting to be setup again. It's as good as the ML and Krell amps I've owned in the past IMO. And I too would like to hear from anyone using BAT SS and Wilson WP's as I'm trying to scrape together the $$ to get a pair of WP6's......

I am just comparing the sound of my Wilson Sophias and WP7's with a variety of amps, both SS and tubed. IMO the BAT SS amps do not produce a soundstage on the level of some ARC, Cary, and Conrad-Johnson tube amps I tried, nor is it in the same range as my Essence SS amps. Before I heard the Essence amps I never heard a soundstage with SS amps that approached that of tubed amps either. Don't get me wrong, the BAT amps had a very nice sound with an iron grip on the bottom end and good dynamics, but soundstaging was not its strong point. An Absolute Sound review about a year ago said the same thing about the VK-600M SE. Maybe you can get a big soundstage with the BAT amps as one other poster said through system synergy but I never heard it myself.