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Vitus SIA-025 and Speakers

Just back from spd’s where he’s had the Boenicke 8s on home demo. They’re sited about 30cm from the wall on granite slabs with a bit of toe-in and in his room, with his hifi (Vitus Signature DAC and amp fronted by a Melco) they sound superb with a soundstage and heft that belies their size and footprint.
Amongst others we played a DSD of the finale of Mahler 2 played by Tilson Thomas and the San Fran Orch and it was stunning - bags of detail (cow bells etc), silky strings and those massive pipe organ pedal notes at the end all rendered beautifully. They look good too. Steve had the walnut finish and it looks a quality item.
Not cheap but bloody good.
 
Quick update on this. Ive had the SIA-025 in and out of my system over the past weeks, as well as a few other amps. Kept coming back to this amp as when it was right is was so right, but on some tracks/albums it just sounded wrong and on occasion distorted.

I had not seen any comments or reviews to this effect and began to think this unit maybe faulty. Anyway was about to return it to my dealer, whom i must say Jack at the Audiobarn has yet again been first class, to the point where i have left him with nothing to demo in his premises.

Anyway i decided to RTFM where i found a comment on adjusting the input sensitivity to avoid clipping, which got me thinking is this distortion actually clipping on the input. Changed the input from 4v to 8v and would you believe it now works perfectly.

I run the amp from a Chord DAVE via XLR cables, after subsequently reading the Chord manual, it states XLR output is 6v and not 3v. Cautionary note for those using it thus, although ive had no issues with any other amp, strange.

One downside is I can't afford this amp and speakers in one go , now wheres that lottery ticket.
 
Mike, yes thats correct. All inputs can be adjusted independently with three settings on each input 2v, 4v and 8v.

There is also an offset for each input which varies the level in 1db steps.

The sensitivity has never been an issue on any other amp ive used, but at least its resolved the distortion issue here.
 
Thanks for that. Strikes me that a minimum input sensitivity of 2V (unusual, I think) is aimed squarely at CD players ! Mine shunts out 3.4V and I have -6 dB attenuator successfully attenuating the signal into my 912 valved pre.

Not sure what you mean by 'offset' though, unless this is a secondary variable stepped pot operable on any of the other 3 settings. My 01 tuner hardly moves the meters on R3 on my pre. at the mo', and I doubt I'd get an audible signal on the Vitus. I've come across variable inputs before but not like this; strange !
 
I believe the offset is to allow level matching across inputs, where as the sensitivity is to reduce overdriving the input which may cause clipping ie distortion.
 
After running the SIA-025 for a couple of weeks solid all i can say is wow what an amp. Some how it forgoes trying to strip music bare and just lets the music flow, its very hard to put a finger on what this amp does.

Emotional listening is the only way to express it
 
Paul Burke said:
If that was in black I’d be really tempted :)
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Me too, though every justification I can think of gets shot down in flames and do I really want to sacrifice valves, momoblocs and on-board multiple phono stages for a line integrated ? Now if I were changing from upper Naim as I did a few years ago, it'd be a different story !
 
Mike Reed said:
Me too, though every justification I can think of gets shot down in flames and do I really want to sacrifice valves, momoblocs and on-board multiple phono stages for a line integrated ? Now if I were changing from upper Naim as I did a few years ago, it'd be a different story !
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You ever owned vitus Mike?
 
Paul Burke said:
You ever owned Vitus Mike?
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Nope; simply very interested as received wisdom has had it for some while that Vitus amplification crosses over that sonic boundary between valves and s/s at the higher level. Having said that, my current kit is only just the valved side of s/s ! My only synergy question revolves around Vitus' s compatibility with ESLs, which nobody so far has offered an opinion on; possibly through lack of pairing experience, which surprises me a little.
 
Ive no idea how the Vitus would gel with ESL's, however I do not see any reason they would not.

I agree with your comment regards the SIA-025 crossing the boundary to valves, its like the best of both worlds.
 
Tbh any speaker I’ve put my own vitus on has sounded better than I’ve generally heard it on other systems.

So far it’s 803d3, kudos s20a’s/505/606, sbls’s, kantas, Larson 8’s, grahams & avalons

So don’t see why it wouldn’t work well with esl’s. Never heard them though
 
Paul Burke said:
So don’t see why it wouldn’t work well with esl’s. Never heard them though
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I've no doubt that they'd work with ESLs (or other planars, probably) but would they be ideal partners ? My current amplification was designed and developed around ESLs; hence my caution.
 
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