I am going to indulge myself a bit and play audio equipment reviewer. Will try to keep this brief and focused, though. I have been a Van Alstine enthusiast for over 25 years. I am the current happy owner of his latest and greatest, an Ultra SL preamp and Ultra 550 amplifier. I am writing to share the results of informal listening tests I arranged to gauge the U550 against possible competition.
What follows is a report of the listening tests of two friends and me, as objectively as I can express them. The caveat is that none of us are professional reviewers, and our tests were not exactly scientific. I will say that between the three of us, we have over 100 years of dedication to music and audio. Two of us were Van Alstine fans, the other was definitely not.
Associated equipment consisted of an Electrocompaniet CD player/DAC, Nordost interconnects and cabling, and B&W 802D speakers. It would have been nice to have a turntable and vinyl involved, but we were challenged quite enough pulling this together without the additional complications that would have entailed. We used what was unquestionably the best preamp available to us – my Ultra SL. I won’t make this report even longer by discussing the diverse music we played. (OK - just one exception: Mary Black's HOLY GROUND is wonderful!)
We began with a pair of VTL monoblocks in the system, MB 185 tube units that are current models. We expected better sound than we heard with this set-up. It seemed veiled, and the imaging of the 802D’s was nowhere near what we knew they were capable of. We switched to the U550, and suddenly the music came alive. A much wider range was revealed, clearer, more transparent, and certainly much more detailed. Imaging was vastly improved. The VTL’s sounded absolutely soggy by comparison. Of course the U550 is more powerful than the VTL’s and is a hybrid as opposed to the VTL’s tube construction, but this was obviously no contest.
We took a break before going on to our next amps, which were more of a challenge: a current-model pair of McIntosh MC 501’s. This is a highly regarded tube monoblock, having won a number of awards including Stereophile's 2004 Amplifier of the Year. The Mac’s had much more authority than did the VTL’s, more that came through on both the bottom and top ends. Soundstaging was very good. Switching to the U550, the music again became more detailed, more transparent, more extended, and certainly more “live.” Bass was fantastic, unquestionably tighter and cleaner, and soundstage was at least the equal of the 501’s. The smoothness of the 501’s seemed by comparison to be a certain fuzziness in definition on the edge and the decay of some notes. The owner of the 501’s was rather chagrined at first... before he got into purely listening to the music, as we all did.
I have had experience with a number of other of Frank’s amps, and am confident that any one of his current models will prove significantly superior to most of the other gear out there. I travel some, and visit high-end audio stores in other parts of the country whenever possible. Though I have not managed to hear Halcro or Levinson gear, that is probably where you would need to go to start to approach the sound quality of his best models. (If anyone has access to those in the upper Midwest and would like to arrange a comparison, please let me know.)
As sold as I am on Frank’s amps, I am even more enthusiastic about his preamps. I regret that I did not write up my previous preamp comparison, but those results were even more decisive. I own a Transcendence 7 as well as the Ultra SL, and believe that it is no exaggeration to suggest that there is no greater value in audio electronics today!
