[mulveling]

I've gone back & forth between Ref 6 and VAC Master (and Ren V) in my own system. The Ref 6 is a wonderful sounding pre that will give you a little bit of sweetness and tube bloom. Will it be enough tube sweetness? Depends on the rest of your system. The Master is a wonderful pre that will give you more tube sweetness and bloom - a really big helping of it. Will it be too much? Depends on your system. The Ren V sounds very similar to the Master but the latter is clearly more articulate and dynamic. I assume the Signature SE is in between the two. The Master pairs brilliantly well with a SS amp (Phison) or a clean SS-like tube amps (Rogue Apollo Dark). But with the matching VAC 200iQ monos it can actually be "too much of good thing" for tube sweetness - though many will love this pairing, it can be just a bit too much for me, in my system (which also has a VAC phono, Koetsu/Benz cartridges, and Tannoy speakers contributing towards this cumulative "sweetness"). Meanwhile the Ref 6 actually paired beautifully with 200iQ's here.

The VAC onboard phono stages are absolutely wonderful, and a great value. Of course their standalone stages are even better if you can stretch it. And yes, their stages' sound is also on the romantic side of things.