Recapping an ARC LS-5 mkiii

@atlvalet For Audio Research and or any Tube Electronics, Scott Frankland is your kinda guy.

As a Heads Up, only Scott Frankland touches my Gear. He has totally Rebuilt my Classic 60 Amp which I have owned since New, and now the LS5 MKIII.

Call Scott since the LS5 MKIII is in the Rack, and it is not going anywhere right now :-).

Tell him David L. sent you.

As a long time LS5 II and III owner, who praised these models on here 20+ years ago, I would be hesitant to put a lot of money into this.  If it sounds good to you, then just run with it.  But if you're looking to put $1k into this, I would suggest you consider alternatives.

My line stage progress since then: ARC LS5 III --> BAT 31SE --> Aesthetix Callisto Sig --> Aria WV5XL which I have had for 15 years.  Each change was a significant step up with the last two being VERY significant refinements.  

After you hear these models and many others from Cary, Canary, VAC, it's hard to go back to the LS5 as it is just too unnaturally forward sounding and lacks the energy in the low end.  About 10 years ago I got an old Counterpoint SA-5 for a small apt system.  At that same time, a friend got a used LS5 II as he found a good deal and he knew of my praise of it years ago.  We ran them side by side and the LS5 lost to the SA5 in a flash.  Even his wife in another room asked what we did right when we switched to the SA-5.  He sold the LS5 and got an SA-5 and put money back into his pocket.  I am not pushing the SA-5, and surely you can do a lot better, but I am pointing out that there is so much out there so be careful what you spend on updates.

As for capacitors, here is a cool read: Capacitor Review Test

John

I would say that the signal cpas should be left alone, but power supply caps could be redone. In a tube pre these are few and even top of the line power supply caps are cheaper, better and will last longer than what we were using in the 1980s.

This is probably a much lower cost investment than I think you were considering.

The one exception here is perhaps the AC coupling caps typically used on the outputs should those prove to be leaky. 

@jafox sounds like you’re a huge Michael Elliott fan lol

I appreciate you giving me your pre-amp progression. Makes me want to search out an Aria Audio preamp, especially since they’re collectors items now (went down an Internet rabbit hole, and found this guy who may have gotten his hands on the last one: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/upgrading-my-system-from-denon-elac-to-aria-audio-meadowlark.1097306/) What did the Aria do the Aesthetix didn’t? (I ask because people seem to wax poetic about the Callipso). Someone should make a schematic of those Aria pieces because I don’t think any exist.

I guess a lot of what people love about the LS-5 is nostalgia, and nostalgia is a dirty liar. The reason I am thinking of getting work done to the LS-5 is that I think it will be cheaper in the short term to update it. Reason why is I have Vandersteen speakers, and that’s one of the default set ups with Vandies.

As @djohn mentioned, he’s very happy with the updates to his LS-5 from Scott Frankland. Per Scott, he upgraded 16 caps/etc that were (or might be) age related wear items. Scott did mention he didn’t touch the coupling caps and thought there could be further improvements there. Doing the same thing DJohn had done would be in the $1000 range.

@erik_squires reason I thought about coupling/bypass caps is because I think ARC offers (or at least used to) offer the TRT Stealthcaps as an upgrade and that would (at least in theory) preserve the ARC house sound.

You might join the Vandersteen owners forum, there are some there running 3A sig w variety of power / pre including Threshold, ARC, Aesthetix, Music Reference, etc….