Jafox, Markwatkiss - I think you are too hard on ARC.Yes, perhaps, but my comment was not so much based on the claim that the next product is "better" than the last. It was about a newer product down in the line outperforming the top tier products of just a year or so ago. Writing that any product outperforms another in every parameter is quite a claim in anybody's book.
As an owner of ARC products for 15 years or so, trying out many of their products in my own system, or taking my product to a dealer to hear the differences, I quickly learned that the latest ARC product in a serious often did not outperform the last one. The new product was often not a refinement of the last, but rather a completely different interpretation of the musical performance! And then some years later, the previous "sound" was back.
People often write here about the ARC "house sound". There are actually two that I know of. This made for much frustration to "upgrade" my system and stay with ARC products. And finally I moved on to other lines, e.g., BAT, Counterpoint, Wolcott, CAT, Aesthetix, Aria.
Come on, after all these years, are line stage circuit topologies or PS designs really changing all that much? The great designers have pretty much already muscled through all the permutations here. The recognition and significance of greatly improved passive components, transformers, cabling, layout, interfaces, etc., are making a greater contribution these days than anything else.
The power supply design/implementation is often the greatest contributor in the improvements as you move up to the higher-priced models. So I am skeptical with the marketing claims when I read that last year's unit with the far more extensive PS design, is now "bettered" across the board by the more compromised new product.
Sure, trickle down knowledge, from what was learned in R&D development of the top products, can benefit the other models, but these models have inherent compromises that would still limit their performance. There could very well be greater resolution or clarity in one form or another brought on by a sweep of new passive components newly discovered. But the units with the beefier supplies are simply going to outperform in the ways of greater dynamics, and low-end control. If you throw in tube regulation/rectification, now you have 3D performance that the compromised solid state PS-based product can not match.
If changing a dozen capacitors takes a product's performance to a new level, then give due credit to the capacitor company and not hand wave that the audio company has once again made a great breakthrough. These comments are not directed at ARC but to the industry as a whole.
Ref-3 was first introduced in 2004, so it is not surprising, that the lower cost model that is beeing introduced some SIX years later is close in performance.Close in performance in every way, or has a refinement or two, e.g., lower noise, extended top end, etc., due to a new wave of components?
John