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Balanced Audio Technology VK-3000SE Hybrid Integrated Amplifier

Balanced Audio Technology VK-3000SE Hybrid Integrated Amplifier

Balance. As a wine merchant by day that’s a word I use with great frequency. Because what I seek in the bottles I offer my customers is a balance—harmony, if you will—between a wine’s fruit, earth, and acid elements. Too much fruit in a wine will taste dull, of one-note, like a bottom-heavy speaker. Too much acid, and you might need a trip to the dentist. Too much earth, and, well, while mineral elements are key to a wine’s complexity they need to fold into the whole, otherwise the bitterness can overwhelm. But when properly balanced, these are the elements that not only make a wine sing, but also make it something that can enhance a meal, something worth paying attention to, maybe even contemplate, as opposed to being mere liquid refreshment.

This coherence, this harmony, this kind of completeness is also, for me, what transforms high-end audio components from being simply sound-producing machines into conveyors of music’s many aural, intellectual, and emotional pleasures.

Balanced Audio Technology, the now 22-year-old company, has always adhered to this philosophy regarding the way its gear reproduces music. And yes, the word “Balanced” in the name also refers to the circuit topology designer Victor Khomenko employs. (Note: Although the company was sold to the group at Music Direct/Mobile Fidelity in 2013, BAT co-founders Khomenko and Steven Bednarski remain at the helm.)

Balanced Audio Technology VK-3000SE Hybrid Integrated Amplifier

The VK-3000SE integrated amplifier ($7995) is BAT’s most recent top-of-the-line effort. And, folks, it’s a doozy. This is one integrated amp that does what we’ve come to expect from the best of these all-in-one designs: To deliver the performance of separate components in a single, relatively compact package—in this case, measuring 19″ x 5.75″ x 15.5″ and weighing in at 50 pounds.

The VK-3000SE is also a hybrid design that marries a tube preamp stage with a solid-state power amplifier section. If truth be told, I’ve had mixed experiences over the years with hybrid tube-transistor integrated amps. To be sure, the concept behind coupling the speed, power, and essentially zero maintenance of a transistor-equipped power amp section with the (likely) warmer, airier, more harmonically layered tube preamp driving it makes loads of sense. But the conception and execution of such designs don’t necessarily result in a coherent sonic voice, instead sometimes devolving into a hodge-podge that doesn’t quite satisfy fans of either approach. But BAT nailed this one.

The unit’s preamp section is outfitted with the same 6H30 “SuperTube Unistage” design topology—including the same excellent paper-in-oil signal capacitors—found in BAT’s top-end Special Edition tube preamplifiers. Inputs include two balanced (XLR) and three single-ended (RCA), with the option to add a conveniently tweakable mm/mc phonostage, which was how my review sample was delivered; I’ll describe this in due course.

 

Here I should note that the VK-3000SE is a notably versatile performer. The front panel controls allow you to name input sources, match their output levels, finely tune balance levels, invert phase, switch into mono mode, assign fixed and maximum volume settings, and adjust the cobalt blue LED display’s brightness level. From the machined-aluminum remote wand, you can switch sources and polarity, mute, adjust, and/or fade the volume. And should you so desire you can also easily fold the VK-3000SE into a home-theater system.

The optional phono preamp is also nicely configurable. Two gain settings, 58dB and 44dB, should cover most of today’s mm and mc cartridges, and essentially any desired load can be configured via resistors that can be easily installed via pins on the unit’s internal PC board.

The amplifier section utilizes the same symmetrical bipolar design found in BAT’s top-of-the-line VK-6200 multichannel power amp. Rated at 150Wpc into 8 ohms and doubling to 300Wpc into 4 ohms, the VK-3000SE has enough firepower to comfortably drive the majority of speakers on the market. And it proved to be a very sweet match indeed with my reference Magnepan 1.7s, which, even in my small listening room, soak up power like the media soaks up every presidential Tweet.


Balanced Audio Technology VK-3000SE Hybrid Integrated Amplifier

You can sense the VK-3000SE’s effortlessness of delivery with a wide variety of musical sources. And if you’ve yet to hear it, check out Chasing the Dragon’s most excellent direct-cut LP, España, which I recently reviewed in these pages. As one would expect from the direct-to-disc process, the recording has a great freedom of dynamic expression—as opposed to sheer power—and the VK-3000SE allows the full dynamic range and snap of Bizet’s Carmen excerpts to really strut. It also fully allows the rather fetching voice of mezzo Rosie Middleton to reach its peak without any sense of strain or aural compression.

Or, for something altogether different, spin any one of the three platters from the David Bowie box set, A Reality Tour [Friday Music]. Recorded live in Dublin, November 2003, this recording finds Bowie and his stellar band in rollicking good form, ripping their way through a set of tunes that span the artist’s career to that date. The BAT’s power output encouraged me to crank the Maggies to their limit, delivering the group’s cocksure swagger and full-throttle joy.

But as I suggested above, power is hardly the only or main reason for me to endorse the VK-3000SE. This amp, like all the best gear, has the ability to lift away—or more accurately, never place—layers of electronic detritus between listener and musical source, thereby conveying a sense of looking/listening in on the recorded event. The above-mentioned España is one such example, but so is something far more technically primitive such as Stephen Stills’ Just Roll the Tape [Rhino], the remarkable set of solo demos he recorded before CSN recorded its first record.

 

Power and immediacy are but a part of what, for me, made my time with the VK-3000SE so satisfying. Another aspect is nuance. For without the ability to paint music’s subtlest shifts of phrase, tone color, and dynamic shading, there can be no poetry. Returning to a perennial favorite, pianist Martha Argerich’s recital of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit [DG], I was again most satisfied with the VK-3000SE’s ability to layer harmonic clusters like a rainbow mist, fully realized yet “floating” with exceptional lightness. Argerich’s gorgeous phrasing and width of dynamic expression were also wonderfully realized.

By the way, I should note that the VK-3000SE is not for those seeking the seductive golden warmth offered by some tube designs. First, this is a hybrid design. But beyond that, unlike my recollection of some earlier BAT (all-tube) designs, which were on the more warmly colored side of the spectrum, the sound here is definitely more Audio Research-like—more coolly neutral—then, say, the golden glow I associate with Conrad-Johnson.

Indeed, for some it might be a tad too cool. Though it isn’t for me, I can fully appreciate some music lovers seeking a bit more sonic warm-and-fuzzy from their systems. And if you’re curious for yourself, and you have the chance to audition a VK-3000SE, by all means be sure that the model you listen to is fully broken-in. BAT’s gear takes a long time—how long, I can’t exactly say but would guess some hundreds of hours—to fully realize its full potential. Before then it will most certainly come across as tightly coiled.


Balanced Audio Technology VK-3000SE Hybrid Integrated Amplifier

Returning to what I wrote in the second paragraph, the VK-3000SE delivers a remarkably complete package combining loads of user flexibility with a clean, neutral, detailed, balanced, and coherent sonic voice that beautifully conveys music’s myriad aural, intellectual, and emotional elements. I think it’s evident that that formula works well for me.

Specs & Pricing

Power output: 150Wpc into 8 ohms, 300Wpc into 4 ohms
Tube complement: 2 x 6H30
Inputs: 2 XLR, 3 RCA, phono optional
Line outputs: Preamp (XLR), Tape (RCA)
Phono module (optional): Gain, 58dB and 44dB; loading is widely variable via resistors
Outputs: 2 pairs of gold-plated binding posts
Dimensions: 19″ x 5.75″ x 15.5″
Weight: 50 lbs.
Price: $7995

BALANCED AUDIO TECHNOLOGY
1300 First State Boulevard, Suite A
Wilmington, DE 19804
(302) 999-8855
balanced.com

Associated Equipment
Rega RP10 turntable and Apheta moving-coil cartridge; Oppo UDP-205 disc player; Sutherland N1 and VTL TL5.5II preamps; VTL ST-150 power amplifier; Magnepan MG 1.7 loudspeakers; Nordost Tyr 2 interconnect, speaker, and power cables; Nordost Qx4 power conditioner and Qb8 AC distribution center; Finite Elemente Spider equipment racks.

Wayne Garcia

By Wayne Garcia

Although I’ve been a wine merchant for the past decade, my career in audio was triggered at age 12 when I heard the Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! blasting from my future brother-in-law’s giant home-built horn speakers. The sound certainly wasn’t sophisticated, but, man, it sure was exciting.

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