VTL Service ??

Their service used to be great (Luke personally delivered a pair of amps to my house), but they've now limited transferrable warranties to the first re-sale, and that decreases re-saleability. And with their success and higher volumes, it's harder to give personalized service. This is understandable. But overall, as the owner of 3 VTLs, I was happy with their somewhat low-urgency approach to service.

I own both a VTL amp & pre-amp. I've never had to have them serviced, but have called VTL many times with questions & they've always been EXTREMELY helpful & cordial. Are you considering buying a brand new one? If so you'll get 5 years of warranty, longer than a lot of warranties on tube equipment. Plus, I think newer VTL stuff is very reliable (knock wood!).

As an owner of 3 pairs of VTL amplifiers, I can say that they have been VERY helpful with both the 2 pairs of amps I bought new AND the pair I bought used. I did speak with Luke about the "transferrable" warranty info. He advised they have been serviceing "lifetime" warranties from the early 80's since he re-formed VTL after his father dissovled the original VTL when he left. Sounds to me like they have gone above and beyond in the servicing of gear as old as 15 years. I understand how a "transferrable" warranty can be abused when after 2 or 3 owners, it is very difficult to tell what tubes have been used, if the unit has been altered etc. IMHO VTL builds an excellent quality product that is VERY reliable. Any problems I have had have been rectified quickly and at reasonalbe cost.

I have a VTL ST-150, and it is a superb sounding amp with very strong deep bass and lots of guts . It has blown some capacitors twice and they were serviced locally in NYC (due to the fact that it weighs about 70 lbs) at Analogic . I have spoke to luking regarding preamp matching and he spent 1/2 an hour on the phone with me and was great. Call Luke and talk to him & I think you will go with VTL . You cant beat the ST-150 for the price. Alternates are Conrad Johnson Premier 8 a's @ $ 6,000.00 use or an Audio Research VT 100 MK II

I've had to call them on two ocassions for tech questions, once to deal with a strange hum i couldn't chase down and once to deal with the aftermath of a near miss by lightning. both times they were very responsive, Bea Lam went out of her way on the lightning deal to get me through all the potential problems without shipping the amps in. Parts (tubes and fuses) showed up within days of sending the order and were reasonably priced when compared with tubes from ARC. They have also been very helpful in suggesting upgrades ect. On a couple of occasions i had to e-mail twice but that isn't any big deal. Considering how good the amps sound (MB 185 monos)i would put up with some service delays. The tetrode/triode swithching is a very cool feature if your tastes include small acoustic group music. Hey Medowman, i bought used as well could you give me some more info on the transferable warrenty that is one thing they didn't mention during our discussions. thanks