Has anyone heard the Ref 3?

You will find that much to your amazement the sound will muddy down for the next 100 hours or so. Typically ARC gear sounds terrific out of the box and then needs a break in.

I owned a Ref 2 Mk ll and now the Ref 3 and IMO the Ref 3 is the finest preamp that I have ever owned

Congradulations on your new Ref 3. I second Oneobgyn's statement, it is also the best preamp that I have owned.
Out of curiosity, did it come with the 6550 tube? I only ask because my experimenting with it seemed so much different then Oneobgyn's. I felt it degraded the sound, my dealer felt that it didn't change the sound, and Oneobgyn felt that it was a significant improvement. I am tempted to send the tube back in exchange for another, or at least have ARC test it and make sure it wasn't a bad tube.

Agaffer, does your ref 3 also sport the bypass caps upgrade? It is my understanding that the 'factory rolling update' includes both caps and power supply tube.

Agaffer

The initial tube they used was also very decent. The 6550C merely adds a bit better bottom end

Guidocorona,
In answer to your question, no. I first heard of the possibility of changing the caps and the one tube on this forum when Oneobgyn mentioned that he did it. Since changing the tube didn't require sending in the preamp or making any modifications I tried it first.
I still haven't come to a final conclusion on changing to the 6550C tube. The one I tried in my preamp made a difference, all for the bad. But, I listened to the REF 3 at my dealer that had been modified and when we changed tubes back and forth I couldn't hear the least bit of difference when changing tubes. I can't comment on what changing the caps did, if anything. I guess that I should take the 6550C tube that I tried over to my dealer and see if it has the same negative effect on his preamp that it did on mine.
Originally I thought Oneobgyn had to be out of his mind. Based on what I heard when I tried the 6550C tube. Now, I am leaning toward I tried inserting a bad tube.