VTL • S-200 Signature Stereo Amplifier$18,000 Review

May 13, 2025 Comments Off on VTL • S-200 Signature Stereo Amplifier$18,000 Review

https://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/vtl_s200_signature.htm

These attributes were replicated with jazz. Drummer Tony Williams’s first recording, Life Time, was reissued in the Tone Poet series [Blue Note 602448321534], and it is a perfect example of how much better some reissues can sound than the more collectable original pressings. The original Blue Note release sounds a bit pale in comparison to this reissue — a stereo issue that neatly avoids the more common left-center-right Rudy Van Gelder staging miscue. The Tone Poet reissue reproduces a soundstage that occurs in a believable space. The drum kit sounds as well recorded as on any Williams recording — in terms of dynamics, size and depth. My favorite cut, “2 Pieces of One,” features both Richard Davis and Gary Peacock on bass, and their lower ranges were articulate with the S-200, yet dense without the slightly lush bass sound that many systems reproduce. The S-200’s extra horsepower delivered tight low bass and articulation of Sam Rivers’s tenor saxophone in its lower registers. Even for 1964, Life Time is unpredictable, with the composition going off in unexpected directions. Timing is essential to its proper reproduction, and the VTL amplifier had no trouble keeping up. A lesser amplifier might imbue a trace of sluggishness that was totally absent with the S-200.

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