What's a contender to an Audio Reference 5 SE?

When you judge an AR Ref5se on all parts you judge highend for, you will find out how limited this pre amp is.

- the stage depth and width is not that big as the best ones.

- In resolution you miss a lot of details.

- in speed and dynamics it is not that special.

- also in individual focus of instruments and voices
it is not that sharp and apparent.

- Also the lack of blacklevel this pre amp does not give
you the 3d apperance of voices and instruments

- when you focus on the diversity in the middle freq, you
will miss the realism in sound. It sound like every
instrument sounds the same. Like you have a warm low end
, mid freq and high freq.

Many highend brands are kept alive with written reviews. It is a pitty that openness and reality is missing in the world of audio. And that is a shame!

"It is a pitty that openness and reality is missing in the world of audio. And that is a shame!"

Bo, you're not helping any. lol. You make a good case to look at something else, so what is it? The OP is asking, if not the ARC, then what? Naim maybe?

Naim is even worse. You need to begin with live music.

One of my best friends had a small concert room with a Steinway wing for 65 people. Here I learend how small and direct voices and instruments sound in real.

I wa slike magic, the intimate sound was what I sill use in all my sets I create for clients.

The second part what influenced me a lot was also jazz live music. I was sitting in the middle and in front of the stage. You could hear all the instruments and stage depth and width. Also the heights of the instruments.

That is why we create a 3 dimensional intimate stage. We test and compare all audio on 9 different parts you judge audio for.

Naim has nothing to do with realism in sound and music. I only can buy it when you don't know a lot about music and how it sounds in real.

I can explain why?

Naim is 2 dimensional, we even call it often 1 dimensional ( mono) because beside there is not stage depth instruments do not have an intimate apparence like in real.

What does audio need?

first of all; education in music. I spend about 3-4 hours every week for the search of new music. I am an music addict.

In 8 years of time I did many shootouts for clients between 2 and 3 dimensional sound. This is the most effective way of getting people exited about music and audio. Even women get exited when you demo 3 dimensional sound. Many women of men who bought a system from us use the set independently.

In 2009 I did a 3 dimensional demo for a person who recently bought a naim set of 14000 euro. He said; I never experienced music this way. When I would have heard this at the time I bought the Naim set, I would have bought this set for sure.

The problem is that the knowledge and insight in sound is getting less every single year. This problem we see and hear at shops, distributers and even at manufacturers.

There is one thing needed; it has to change. This way audio will become a smaller market every single year.