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Ps Audio BHK preamp Vs ARC best preamps

Hello to everyone in this forum, I'm Mario from Venice, Italy and I'm a new member even if I read your posts since a lot of time.

First of all sorry for my written english, I will try to do my best.

I would like to know if anyone has been able to compare the BHK preamp with the best of ARC production and in my opinion this means with LS 22, LS 25 (both the versions...), Ref 3, Ref 5SE and so on.

Thank you for sharing  your impressions.


Mario 
mariovidal65
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,587 posts
 
Mario, it seems that no preamp is the way to go, but I must tell you that Paul McGowan the owner of PS Audio says that  he finds that using a BHK preamp sounds better than not using one.  Of course he wants people to buy his preamps, but if you can borrow one from a dealer or friend I would try it out and see what you think.
mariovidal65 OP
34 posts
 
Thanks to all for your advices and suggestions, and yes, I've heard that a lot of people gave up in using preamps, especially in the case of DSd which has been specifically designed, when Mr McGowan didn't sell preamps and he was absolutely convinced that that was the right way to go, to work in this modality.

And yes, the way is to wait for the arrival of my BHK 250, to listen what will happen then and in case to have a BHK preamp borrowed by my dealer and investigate what will be the differences, 6000 $ in addition apart ;-)...


Mario
ricred1
2,003 posts
 
I've owned the DSD, Bricasti M1, Jeff Rowland Aeris, and now the Chord Dave DAC. In my "opinion" none of them sound good direct...the soundstage collapses and dynamics are lost.
enliten
44 posts
 
Mario, we are not too far away from Paul's shop here in Colorado and we plan to drop in sometime soon anyway. What's your time frame? We can try the actual test with an without the pre and report findings back... His listening room with the IRS Vs is quite good and revealing. Paul would probably dig the experiment.
shiner01
14 posts
 
I have (almost) all PS Audio gear, and when I got the Directstream Jr DAC I was planning on it replacing the integrated amp I was using at the time by running it directly to my amps.  While accurate in the mid & high end, I found the sound very thin and lacking in bass.  I added the BHK Pre and the sound improved all around.  I can't explain why another component in the chain added to the sound in such a profound way, but it did.  I can't comment on ARC, but I can speak to PS Audio, and in my experience the addition of the pre to their DAC was most certainly an improvement (and frankly necessary in my system, as the DAC alone would have been insufficient).
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