Audio Research Corp Ref 5 SE

Brill, stay with it. My Ref 5 SE sounds great! I've got about 700 hours on it.

@Bifwynne. Is the bass the last to snap into place?

I don't recall. At this point, I think the whole presentation is quite impressive. Just curious, what's the input impedance of your amp? Is your Ref 5 SE driving anything else like a sub woofer? As an fyi, most ARC line stages, incl the Ref 5, should not be driving a combined load of less than 20K ohms.

Two comments -

First, I have around 150 hours on my Ref 250 amps and my Ref Phono 2SE and what I have noticed is an not so subtle improvement in transparency and sweetness in the highs. The bass out of the box was really great. Right now, it may have toned down a bit in the bass, but having never been a believer in component 'break-in', I am really starting to become a believer now.

Second, Bifwynne, I am contemplating replacing my Rowland Synergy Iii with a Ref 5SE to have an all ARC system. I also use a REL Gilbraltar sub with only a load of 10K ohms. I don't like hooking the sub up to the amps, so I run it through the preamp main out. Based on what you described in your previous post, would that be a problem for the Ref 5SE?

@ Phil -- could be. Search the Forum for my posts regarding a custom impedance buffer that was made for me to resolve this issue. The formula to compute combined impedance is: The product of Main 1 feed imp. x Main 2 feed imp, divided by the sum Main 1 feed imp + Main 2 feed imp. In my case, Main 1 feeds my VS-115 which has an input impedance of 300K ohms and Main 2 feed the customer impedance buffer which has an input impedance of 330K ohms. If you do the math, the combined impedance is 157K ohms. Run your calcs and report back.