Audio Research Ref. 3, Ref. 5, or the Ref. 5se.

Buy the Ref3 now.  It is an outstanding line stage.  Whenever you get ready to move up to the Ref 5SE, you can always trade up... or you just may find yourself content with the Ref3 with no desire to trade up.

After auditioning the Ref5 SE, he will want to move up...

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!

If you buy a REF 3 or 5 just replace the current used tubes by 6H30P-DR
and the powerreg. tube by a NOS Tungsol 6550 black plate . Do add the
powerbank upgrade as used in the REf 5 SE , and you will be amazed !

tsushima1,

Much appreciated on the tube replacement advice. In regards to  the fuse replacment, I'm not going to touch the fuse, I am happy the way it is! No offense, but I am no longer OCD driven and am content with my system within reason. However, I must add I am sort of let down by the Sovtek 6550 tubes that were with the unit upon purchasing. I developed a noise in the right channel attributed to a noisy output stage tube. Not the intermittent burps tubes occasionally develop, this was constant! This only after 150 hours on the unit. I called Audio Research and asked for 2 replacements just in case I had another issue.

 I replaced the right channel tube and was back to happy listening when suddenly around 300 hours the left channel did the same exact thing! I then replaced it with the spare tube. I am glad I asked for two instead of the one that they were going to originally send out. Since replacing the two that were bad, I have not had any other tube noises since then. I have around 480 hours on the unit now.