Vitus Audio at Marten design

By: Pac@HiFiForum.nu

Date: 17-18 April

Place: Mårten Design, Gothenburg Sweden

- version

Vitus Audio is a small-specialised Danish manufacturer that is fairly new to the public. They introduced their preamplifier (RL-100) and RIAA-amplifier (RP-100) at the High End show in Stockholm 2003 and their top of the range monoamplifier (SM-100) was introduced in Frankfurt the same Year. The review in HiFi+ march issue in 2004 where their reference-product got some very nice reviews really made the small company busy, scentences like "the New kid on the High End block" and "more evidence that the status quo in High End audio is on the move..."has really made the wheels start spinning...

"Vitus Audio" is driven and owned by Hans-Ole Vitus. He caught the HiFi-virus in early years from a father to a friend. Hans-Ole has his formal degree from the Aarhus university where was trained in electrical design with a special towards analogue design. He doesen’t spend his days designing electronics though as he works in the marketing and sales organisation of one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world.
At the university Hans-Ole started designing his own HiFi-equipment and soon found that some of his own designs performed similar or better than commercially available equipment. One thing lead to another and he soon started tweaking Mark Levinsons and Cambridges that was sold via a store in Copenhagen named "Tape connection". It was while doing these tweaks that Hans-Ole started to get a view on how he really wanted a line stage. It was also at this time that hte dream of Vitus Audio started to form and grow. Hans-Ole still has strong links with DIY and did actually call himself a DIY'er a couple of times during our interview and listening session.

Today the goal for Vitus Audio is in the extreme High End segment. Saying that I went into the listening session at Mårten Designs visitor centre with low expectations would be an understatement of gigantic proportions. I expected the best that there is...

The first thing that struck me as I entered the room was the feeling of quality that the equipment sent out. It was Vitus Electronics hooked up to the Marten Design Coltrane by Jorma cables. The Marten Design Coltrane is today a well known celebrity that I have had the chance to listen to many times so I knew that the electronics had to o its best or Coltrane would ruthlessly show their flaws. The Vitus mono amps where placed in front of the rack. These babies weigh in at +70kg each (more precise 73kg...)
They are called SM-100 but considering the weight I think Hans-Ole could as well name them S&M-100... It's not nice to all us HiFi-enthusiasts when the designers design equipment that needs forklifts to be moved, or maybe "nice" is exactly what it is?

The amps are built in heavy machined aluminium plates and the interior seems to be as heavy-duty designed as the exterior. There is a huge UI-transformer hiding inside. They can do both Class A and Class AB, are built with bipolar technology and will deliver a true 100W both in Class A and in AB

Vitus backbreaking main amp, hefty 70kg plus per channel...

The Preamp and the RIAA is built in the same sturdy style as the amp's so the spread the same quality feeling. It's really a joy to grip the volume knob on the Preamp, no flimsy plastic feeling there. It's all made of solid, robust aluminium with a samma kvalitetskänsla av dem.
The thing that makes Vitus Audio stand out from the crowd is not the build quality al though it is very good. Vitus runs all its low level electronics on battery and Hans-Ole claim that they have solved the inherent pulse effect problem that batteries has leaving only the quietness of the battery drive left. This is quite a statement which really has to be proved, but more about that in the listening part of this article

To build a RIAA was really not the first thing that had entered Hans-Ole's thoughts since he was really deep into digital sources, CD was the name of the game. So Hans-Ole had got rid of his Vinyl collection and vinyl rig in the 80's as a lot of others less fortunate did... So the story of Vitus and Vinyl would have stopped there if it had been for a friend of Hans-Ole. Lucky enough, his friend stuck to vinyl since he thought it sounded better and after a couple of years of nagging at each other it was time for the BIG SHOOT OUT. They brought the CD-rig and vinyl-rig together and outcome was predestined. The vinyl-rig shot the Cd-rig out of the water and Hans-Ole "saw the light". Vitus Audios RIAA thoughts were born.

As of today Hans-Ole has more than a 1000 vinyl records, is a collector and Vitus Audio has a RIAA on its repertoire. With the listening I got I don't think it is out of place to send a "thank You" to his friend from the vinyl community...

RIAA on top, Preamp below