Pass amp paired with audio research pre?

The thing to look at is the output impedance at 20Hz, which is often considerably higher than it might be at 1KHz.

I didn’t think AR would "cheap out" on output coupling caps that are too small into anything above 10k.

As this infers they have 10uF output coupling cap. Plenty large enough even into 10kohm power amp which would be -3db @ 1.5hz!! plenty low enough.
20k amp like some Pass’s would be -3db @ 0.75hz!!!!!

"Stereophile review: During shipping, one of the four large, 10µF Teflon output-coupling caps at the right rear of the printed circuit board had broken off. ARC sent me a replacement"

Atmasphere: 

 Thank you for your note! Hypothetical. Trying to think about where I should go with future purchases. I live in the sticks. Not much opportunity to listen to other components. I try to read and ask questions.

Been thinking about audio research reference 5SE, Audio research reference phono 3, pass labs 250.8. 

I have a VPI classic 4 with a transfiguration Proteus cartridge…

bdp24:

  My bad! I have an older model RM 200. I fell in love with Music reference amps early on.

Feeling like my system is a bit too polite. Wonder if my speakers could use a kick in the pants from a solid-state amp. Love their organic sound though.

I listen to very little heavy metal. More 60s and 70s rock,  grateful dead, traffic, Fairport convention, Joni Mitchell, ...fair bit of jazz and classical. Do occasionally throw on some Steve Miller, the cars, the police, REM, from my high school and college days…

 Wonder how much of this politeness I can attribute to my audio research LS-16

fanotunes OP
Been thinking about audio research reference 5SE, Audio research reference phono 3, pass labs 250.8.

This AR pre is what my figures were based on above, and this would be a fine match, with the Pass amp.

Cheers George

Ref 5 into a Pass X350. The X350 input is actually in parallel with a crossover used to run an SVS sub. So load on the Ref 5 is about 15k ohms. I think you'd have to go below 10k to really start seeing any degradation in response or output.

I think the ARC/Pass combo will give you the best of both worlds. Plus you can run the whole thing balanced and it's hard to beat the versatility of the AR preamps.

Audio Research has been changing output caps over the last few years so while I doubt they would go cheap some may have a different output impedance than others.