ARC Ref 1 vs. ARC LS-25 I vs. ARC LS-25 II

Have a LS-25 Mk.I that I have been very happy with. Not sure how it stacks up against the Ref I or LS-25 Mk.II as I have not A/B those units in my system. The LS-25 Mk.I did better my previous Sonic Frontiers SFL-2 and Mark Levinson 38S by wide margins. The sound of my LS-25 has been greatly improved with both NOS tubes and full Marigo dot treatment. I also have had good luck with a CPCC Top Gun on the LS-25 Mk I. The LS-25 Mk.I also successfully drives a relatively long interconnect run (25 Feet) to my amp. Hope this helps. Good Luck.

My system is as follows
cd player: Meridian 508.24
pre-amp: none(just sold via AG)
amp: Mark Levinson No. 27 for sale via AG, to be replaced with an ARC VT200
speakers: Sonus Faber signums w/REL StrataIII
speaker cable: Nordost SPM
I.C.: Nordost Quattro fil XLR
Others: Transparent Power bank, Cardas Golden power cords, Meridian 504 tuner(for sale)

LS 25 II win easily ! MK II much more detail with super wide soundstage which i loved about that preamp !

I owned a late model REF1 which I replaced with a LS25 MKI several years ago. At that time I was using Quad USA Monitors and a VT100. I thought that the LS25 was very close to the REF1 in my system: to me, the LS25 had an edge in resolution, whereas the REF1 seemed to have a slightly better soundstage. There was not enough difference to justify the price difference and I hated burning 8 NOS tubes in the REF1 verses 4 in the LS25. Good Luck!
BTW, with your VT200, do you know if there is a single bias adjustment for each octet of 6550's?