VAC Signature Preamplifier Mk 2

Valves! Who uses this term nowadays? They are vacuum tubes, or just “tubes”. In the old days before the transistor they were known as valves. Why still refer to them as such? You will have one legitimate reason to use it if the company you own is named Valve Amplification Company.  The mnemonic of the first letters forms “VAC”, as in VACuum tube. In electronics, a thermionic valve is a device used to create or manipulate an electrical signal via the thermal transmission of electrons in a low pressure space. The success of VAC is owed to the functionality and beautiful sound of the electronic valve.

VAC is the vision and passion of Kevin Hayes, who founded the company in 1990 with the practical aid of his father, the late Channing W. Hayes. I never met Hayes the senior in person, but had a few brief, pleasant conversations with him. Even as his health deteriorated, he often manned the phones at VAC. You can gain some insight into the culture of excellence at VAC by reading Kevin’s tribute to him: http://www.vac-amps.com/cwh_tribute.htm.

A tribute - that’s what VAC products strike me as, a tribute to audio manufacturing excellence. Everything about the products pulls the mind backward in time to an era when sound, not video, was dominant in leisure time activities. Techno-crazed contemporary culture has undergone revolutions, from the time when printed word was authoritative, to the era when audio was king, giving way eventually to the era of the eyeball. As visual stimulation dominates the entertainment choices of the masses, VAC components are made to give adulation through the art of listening, to showcase the grandeur of the acoustic experience. Showcasing the sharp minds employed in development, excellent build quality from a small production line, and pride of performance and appearance, the Signature Preamplifier Mk 2 (Even the name is prodigious!) is an example of premium American craftsmanship. It is a piece that sits proudly in the finest environments and croons exquisitely, “I am a statement product.”

The way the Signature 2 is made certainly makes a statement. It’s designed by what Kevin calls, “first principles” engineering. The goal is not to end up with “mere hi-fi,” but to bring the music back to life. The engineering problem, the design, is broken down into component parts, attention is paid to each stage and all the ways the stages can interact. Emphasis is placed on the dynamic flow of the signal. Kevin likes recalling the words of Daniel von Recklinghuasen, an engineer at H.H. Scott and editor of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, “If it measures good and sounds bad, it is bad. If it measures bad and sounds good, you have measured the wrong thing.” I’m in no position to tell Kevin if he’s measured the right thing, but I am in a position to weigh in on sound, and this preamp sounds tremendously good!

Better Than A Tool, An Instrument

Kevin makes it a point to call his products instruments. There is a huge difference between a tool and an instrument. A tool gets the job done, sometimes quite crudely. An instrument is far more precise, more exacting. My sister is a dental hygienist, and when I visit her for a cleaning she will utilize dental instruments. One called a “root planer” has an elongated razor sharp curved point; think of a miniature Grim Reaper’s scythe with a twist. It’s for poking into the space between the gums and the tooth’s root to scrape plaque off the tooth. You can’t use a toothpick, a rude tool, for such exacting work. You need a honed device made to much more exacting specifications and applied with much more care.

When I return home from a visit to my sister’s dental clinic after being subjected to her instruments I run my tongue across my teeth and they feel gloriously clean, natural, and beautiful. Similarly, when I sit in front of the instrument which is called the Signature Preamplifier Mk 2, my ears feel as though they have undergone a cleansing experience. Kevin Hayes is a type of “musical Hygienist, working with exceptionally refined instruments to clear away acoustic plaque from the “teeth” of the music. As the Signature II runs music across my ears they hear something rapturously clean, natural and beautiful. My ears have never felt more pampered.