Audio Refinement Complete owners: amp power Q

Jb3

I have a review here on the Europa and am still using my Complete. They are a great match and the more i listen, the more i like. The Plinius is a supurb amp but I feel a bad match for the Europas.

Having lived with this combo for about three months I feel to better the Complete you will need an excellent tube Integrated, the Unico might just be the ticket??

P.S. IMO the Europas are at their best with tubes and the Complete is the next best thing and probably better than 90% of the tube Integrated's out there.

I have yet to hear any compression from overdriving the Complete. My room size is about average and I listen at modest levels.

Hi John,

I don't think you can go wrong with Signal Cable IC's for the price. I used the Analog 2 for awhile, and found it to be a solid performer.

Roy Johnson, who designed the Europa's, highly recommended Audio Magic Sceptor IC's. They were a bit out of my price range, but I did try the Audio Magic Excalibur II with my Complete, and found them to be a noticeable improvement over the Signal Cable. Smoother midrange, cleaner treble, and more detail. Of course, the Excalibur's were about $125.

Two other cables you might consider: Analysis Plus (also recommended by Roy), and Millersound. Millersound IC's are pretty rare, but they are essentially clones of JPS Superconductors and are only about $40-50 used. VERY neutral cables that are great for the price.

Its awfully hard to get around to actually listening to all of these, good to narrow it down. I really like what I see in the Unico too, but as you alluded to, it is a significant step up in price, a step up that may not be proportional to the benefits it produces.
I'm now pretty certain that the Complete offers plenty of power for the Europas, the feedback that I have had has been consistent.

Hey Eric,
Roy made the same recommendation to me. I certainly don't doubt his recommendation, I'm sure the AM's are excellent. But laying down that kind of money--$700+ for the Sorcerers--is a little beyond me. Plus, there is the hotel room I would have to rent when my wife found the bill!!
I'm pretty sold on Signal Cable for speaker cables, but I am going to consider some of the more affordable AM and AP IC's, with the Signal Analog2's as the value-fallback option. I am going to look into the Millersounds too. I enjoy buying from lesser known companies that put more resources and attention into their product than advertising and flash.
John

Stick with the ARC Int. I found that it sounds almost as good as my Aleph 2s into 4 ohms, but not quite as powerful.
So I had to spend $5k instead of $1k. Oh well. I've put this giant killer into several friends' systems (as well their GREAT matching tuner---but NOT the CDP!), and ALL have been extremely impressed. Nice remote, too.
It's ability to double down to 4 ohms is reasonable...somewhere in between the YBA one and two transformer cousins, at 80w/ch, probably adequate for your needs.