[Rashiki]

I was looking through the latest Audio Advisor catalog and noticed they have started selling a lot of gear from Vincent. The thing which most intrigued me is their small monoblock power amps. Audio Advisor is selling the SP-996 (125 Watts into 8 ohms) for $495 each. These are small (3.5" by 9" by 8.6"), so I would guess they are some form of class D amp, but I can't find any details.

Here's the link to the Audio Advisor page:
http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdetail.asp?sku=VINCSP996B&product_name=SP-996%20Monoblock%20Power%20Amplifier,%20Each

Other sites have the SP-997, which has a little more power (150 Watts into 8 ohms), but otherwise seem very similar.

Has anyone heard these amps? Does anyone know what's under the hood - class AB, class D, or something else?

 -Rob

[mgalusha]

http://www.vincent-tac.de/en/design/dl2.php - has all their products. No experiece what-so-ever with them. I saw them in the Audio Advisor catalog as well.

[BradJudy]

Vincent is a brand name applied to Sheng-Ya electronics.  I had a chance to pick some up on a group-buy a couple of years ago, but passed.  They are also sold by a US distributor under the 'Kavent' brand name.  You can get some of the equipment from importers like cattylink under the Sheng-Ya name.  At one point, Mark Schifter made some public mention of possibly importing their products under one of his brands, but it doesn't look like that ever materialized.

[Bill Baker]

They are also sold by a US distributor under the 'Kavent' brand name.

 The Kavent line, at least as we know it, has been discontinued and new models, mor e"tubes" are going to be introduced. To my knowledge, there are no more Kavent components available from the distributor.
 I was a dealer for the Kavent gear and found it's build quality very impressive for the money. I still have one of their A-210 Integrated Hybrid amps available.
 Impressive gear but I think the Vincent line, now manufactured in a seperate facility, had something to do with Kavent going by the wayside.

[BradJudy]

 Impressive gear but I think the Vincent line, now manufactured in a seperate facility, had something to do with Kavent going by the wayside.

Are you saying that ShengYa has a separate facility for the Vincent products or that ShengYa has a new facility?

[Bill Baker]

Are you saying that ShengYa has a separate facility for the Vincent products or that ShengYa has a new facility?

 I honestly don't know for sure but my understanding was that Vincent has their own facility or their own divission withing the original facory for their products??. They now have complete control over the manufacturing of the Vincent line. For some time now, there have been some significant differences between the Vincent and Kavent products despite what others (including myself) have thought. I think the reason for doing away with the Kavent line was so consumers would no longer condem Vincent as being only a more expensive version of the Kavent with a different name badge. This is only my opinion of course.

 In fact, I am bringing the Vincent line in later this summer.