VTL Siefried vs Audio Research 610T

"My wife and I almost stopped listening to music with the VTL's now for the first time in months".

Is there any hope for the rest of us? Forget whether Siegfried or ARC 610t is better - if one is not drawn to listen with all your previously proclaimed amazing and satisfying equipment, including what you proclaimed to be the best speaker on the planet(Wilson Alexandria)- then are the rest of us also fated to a disconnect from our music listening without a NEW 40k amp, or for that matter w/o the world's best loudspeaker?

Hello,
Both are very expensive amps. Its very important that David Wilson uses $45k Siegfrieds but I suggest you to read:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1180897750&read&keyw&zzspectron

Also, I have heard that Wayne Donnelly - Positive Feedback reviewer, who knows about equipment and MUSIC, recently sold his Siegfrieds and use relatively inexpensive Spectron Musician III SE in stereo mode. As good as the stereo is - two of them, in fully balanced monoblock configuration (still much cheaper then Siegfrieds) are pure " tube magic"
All The Best in Your search,
Rafael

thanks for your replies...I'm going to audition the Siefried's in my system this week and the 610T's in the coming weeks.

Question for the Wilson owners...What speaker cable are you using with your Maxx's or X2's? I'm using Audioquest Everest, I had them with my previous Vandersteens and decided to use them for now but I've never tried another cable with the Wilsons.

Transparent, Audioquest Everest is brighter

Dave uses Transparent Opus, the guys at the ARC factory (they have Maxxs 2 driven by 610Ts, BTW) use Shunyata Orion, and so prolly does Samuel, who AFAIK is a Shunyata emploee.

Both of those cables are a bit rolled off on top, Orion on top of that is a bit rounded and tad warmer than both AQ and TA, which IMO may actually compliment Wilsons quite nicely. Everest (which I also own, BTW) on the other hand is much more linear to my ears, much more open on top. As such, it is much better suited to speakers like your ol Vandersteens than Wilsons. No wonder AQ CEO, Bill Low, uses Vandersteens 5a at home.