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Stupidgood: Ars Sonum

There are lots of "terms of art" used by audiophools to describe sound and equipment. I propose a new one - stupidgood - a piece of equipment that blows you away, as good as it gets (more or less), and the price or the looks of it makes you incredulous as to how good the equipment is. Of course, I did not come with the term; that would by Bobby P. (Mr. von Merlin) describing the Ars Sonum integrated amplifier. I've had separates from ARC, Joule, LAMM, and CAT, and I can tell you, the Ars Sonum is stupidgood driving Merlin VSM-MXes, which can driven very easily be this little 30 watt gem.
pubul57
chaz801's avatar
chaz801
77 posts
 
Does anyone know if it is updated?
tabl10s's avatar
tabl10s
1,083 posts
 
Man, I wanted the silver faceplate, but could only get gold.
pubul57 OP
3,712 posts
 
But that gold matches the Merlin brass rods so nicely. As far as I know, the SE version in the lastest version; some modification made in the course of Bobby's discussion with Ricardo.
tabl10s's avatar
tabl10s
1,083 posts
 
Chaz
If it's at least this years production, it's current.
Pub(and other owner's)
What kind of isolation arer you using for the amp?
pubul57 OP
3,712 posts
 
No sophiscated isolation, I have a two shelves (Maple Wood) on a rack with a sandwich between them of cork and rubber (like the Mapleshade stuff). I also use Herbie tube damppers on the small tubes, but frankly, I can hear the difference. If there is ever a MKII, I would not send it back unless there was a one month turnaround, but this thing is so good, I'm not worrying about - really (well, maybe I would worry a little bit). By the way, I was worried about it not being loud enough at 30 watts, well, watts ain't watts (these are Class A and tubes)this integrated has plenty of power for my music and my room (12x19). If you had a very large room that needed a lot more power, you would probably have the mistaken assumption that the Merlins were too small - looks can be deceiving.
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