Dear Mr Turner,
I am looking for a good strong amplifier to drive my Monitor Audio PL 200 loudspeakers. A friend of mine brought me a VT 200 MK 1. It sounds realy superb. However, after reading your article about the design defects of the VT 200 I am worried and I am thinking of not buying it. He is selling it to me for 3000Euros.
It has new valves and it realy sounds superb.
By the way I am using it with unbalanced connection to my preamplifier since it does not have a balanced output. I have connected teh loudspeakers to the 4 ohm on one side and the other in the center posts that it has that are labeled "unbalanced common". Is this correct? I also am not sure how to determine the correct live polarity of the amp since my pre is not very good (an Electrocompaniet Preampliwire 1.3) and when I turn the plug one way(shuko plug), it sounds more detailed but very trebly(if I can say that), on the other side it sounds more quiet and it seems to loose some info. I think that the first should be the right one but perhaps you know of a way for me to find out for sure.
Finaly the big question, (and as I am writing this, I notice that the first two valves at the real left have their bottom parts lighting a brighter than the rest, which worries me, after reading your post, since I do not much about valves, eventhough I am an electronics engineer), should I buy it? Is there somethng I can do to make it more reliable or what do you suggest? Is there another amp that you know that sounds as detailed and as good for (hopefully) less money?
I realy appreciate your opinion, since you seem to have experience with fixing these. Do you think that I can get similar sound with transistor amplifier(suggestions welcome) which is less fussy.
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