Conrad Johnson ACT2 against Audio Research Ref 3

Oneobgin, best thing is to try things out. You can likely perform some tests before I do. Please let us know your results.

Guido

I understand completely what you did with the remote. There is a button that determines SE vs balanced. Your demo was running balanced cables but you hit the SE button which reduced the gain in your system demo. I am not even certain because I haven't tried it with my Ref 3 (but I will) what happens if there are only balanced interconnects and not SE and you hit the SE button on the remote. At the very least you will suffer a 6 Db drop off, but maybe even worse because you had no SE cables.

Bingo Doc. But it could be even worse than that. . . the button likely shuts off one half of the Ref 3's circuit--that is the signal return path. The 6DB signal drop off is but a sideeffect.
I should like to point out that when the event happened, raising the volume on the remote did not correct the degradation of the signal. Furthermore, I was not alone at the time, several other people, including Aris Audio's Scott haver observed the degradation.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that a sound difference might be detectable only on some totally balanced systems.

Oneobgyn, Guido -
As you are both owners, see if you can find out (from ARC?) or elsewhere, what the purpose of having that button/circuit change is for. Given that there is an audible degredation of sound, it appears that the REF3 works best in balanced mode rather than in SE mode, or am I mistaken.

I disagree. IMO you had a REF 3 using balanced cables and not SE cables. Switching to SE with the remote resulted in faulty signal. I am surprised that you even heard any sound at all