A new ST-120 review

You beat me audiobill...I just seen that post on the Emotiva forum. Really sweet to look at and if I am not mistaken it is one of your accomplishments.
Nice job.
Diappointed to read an ST120 was being used to power a SONUS system. Nothing against SONUS, I have a friend that enjoys it everyday through-out the house.
It almost seems like a waste of such a perfect machine in a 2channel system...IMO

Hope your well Bill...I know your busy!

Well I'm the one who posted the review over there and I love the amp. I purchased it as a kit and managed to get it working although I will be eternally grateful to Bill for the advice he gave me as well as helping to troubleshoot some things. I know if he had done the build it would have been a whole lot neater and worked from the start but I wanted to try my hand at it. And luckily it works now!

About the Sonos system - I actually like it. I use it to stream flac files in CD-quality resolution. The drawback is it cannot handle any files with a higher resolution than 44.1/16 but then that's good enough for me. I don't hear any difference between that and using my Emotive ERC-2. In fact I put the ERC-2 up for sale since I very rarely use it.

See, this is the kind of support available in this community! I have never read a negative thought about the vta st 120. Well done on getting it done. And should you ever to go insane on other components in your system, you already know (I hope) that your '120' is up to the task, and won't hold you back.

Tube Nube wrote:See, this is the kind of support available in this community! I have never read a negative thought about the vta st 120. Well done on getting it done. And should you ever to go insane on other components in your system, you already know (I hope) that your  '120' is up to the task, and won't hold you back.

Oh it is a wonderful amp! No more SS for me and I think the 120 is all the amp I need. I also like using it with the attenuator, the only "drawback" being the lack of remote control for the volume but that's minor. I can get my daily exercise by getting up and down to adjust the volume.

monkuboy wrote:Oh it is a wonderful amp!  No more SS for me and I think the 120 is all the amp I need. I also like using it with the attenuator, the only "drawback" being the lack of remote control for the volume but that's minor. I can get my daily exercise by getting up and down to adjust the volume.

Hey monk, I too have a 120 and pair it with an Emotiva Stealth DC_1 DAC.  It has a remote with volume control and can act as much like a preamp as it does a superb DAC.

Given where you posted you may want to keep an eye out for a used one FS.  They pop up all the time.

jasn54 wrote:

monkuboy wrote:Oh it is a wonderful amp!  No more SS for me and I think the 120 is all the amp I need. I also like using it with the attenuator, the only "drawback" being the lack of remote control for the volume but that's minor. I can get my daily exercise by getting up and down to adjust the volume.

Hey monk, I too have a 120 and pair it with an Emotiva Stealth DC_1 DAC.  It has a remote with volume control and can act as much like a preamp as it does a superb DAC.

Given where you posted you may want to keep an eye out for a used one FS.  They pop up all the time.

Thanks for the suggestion! Actually I did have a DC-1 but have a bad habit of always wanting to try new things so I sold it. I have an Oppo HA-1 right now which operationally is similar to the DC-1 in that it is a DAC that can act as a preamp, and has a remote. Initially it was hooked up to my ST-120 but I wanted to make the path even more direct so I sent for and installed the attenuator knob. I also switched out the Oppo for a Schiit Bifrost Multibit DAC, which I prefer to the Oppo. So the lack of a remote is really my own doing, and I can't complain about that. Not that complaining would do any good anyway, haha. But thanks!

Yikes, monk, now you've peaked my interest in your swaps, so I'm kinda sorry I chimed in, if you know what I mean...  

Enjoy your gear!