VTL VINTAGE TUBE AMPS DELUXE 500

VTL DeLuxe 500

The MB-750's roots lie in two very different VTL models: the VTL-DeLuxe 500 Monoblock and the Ichiban, both introduced around 1988. The VTL-DeLuxe 500 was a growth version of the DeLuxe 300, reported to have grown out of a conversation between David Manley and Harry Pearson of The Abso!ute Sound, who were independently wondering how an ultra-high-powered tube amplifier might affect music reproduction. With 12 KT88 output tubes per channel run in ultralinear configuration and biased to run in class-AB-1, the Monoblock's DeLuxe 500 of power were targeted directly at the American audio aesthetic of big rooms and inefficient speakers.

The Ichiban, on the other hand, arose from the Japanese and European fascination with triode amplifiers. The concept was an outlandishly high-powered triode amplifier, originally 100Wpc with a dozen 211 or 845 output tubes per channel, intended for the Japanese market. The 211/845 model never came to fruition, but a second version, a push-pull design based on either two (45W) or four (90W) 300B output tubes per channel, was built and sold in Japan and Asia. In the US, the Ichiban was introduced in 1989 as a 200W mono amp with 12 triode-wired EL34s per side, biased to run pure class-A. Later versions used triode-wired KT90s, bringing the power up to more like 275W—certainly fulfilling the original concept of a super-power triode amp.

Or, as David Manley referred to it in an earlier edition of The VTL Book, "...assumes the status of broadcasting and power-stations." Although the 500W Monoblock and Ichiban were very different in concept, they shared one distinctive characteristic: They were the first VTL amps to use the dramatic double-decker chassis configuration, essentially two standard VTL chassis supported by the bottom chassis dedicated to the power supplies and the top to the signal-carrying circuitry.

Great condition mounted on original rack rails.