Audio Research Ref: CD8

My X-mas tree is already in the bag. Please let us know your findings. I would think unless the CD8 is clearly superior, that the CD7 would now be great value for some.

It is on sell here on AudioGon already two modified CD7. I wonder what can be the rationality behind it. Any ideas

Probably people who are upgrading to the CD8.
Anyone else besides me have input on the CD7 power supply modification ?

I also think Dweller are right. It seems that ARC have a development strategy with module solutions. My guess is that we soon can see a Ref PH8 (PH7 with the "new" power supply and?) CD5's DAC is technical better but many still prefer CD7. My guess is that CD8 is the best of both.
Next major upgrade of Ref3 show the future. ARC's strategy is little tireing. DCS for example have another customer care philosophy with free software upgrades for longer lifecycles.

As I typed before, I had a chance to get a CD8 and CD7 for the weekend to home and experienced these two with my audio setup. My system basically is ARC gear, Ref-3 and Ref-610T monos. A couple of weeks ago I tested Ref-7 and found it has a better synergy than my Audio Aero Prestige. Now it was a better and more exiting test, comparing the successor of Ref-7 and Ref-7.

CD8 had approx 150 hours of burning while Ref-7 had 500+ hours. One can argue that CD8 needs much more hours to perform its optimum.

I also invited some audiophile friends to compare these two players.

I did not reveal which player was playing to the listeners until the end. So it was player A vs player B.

The conclusion was very straightforward. I guess it is a fair to say CD8 is a better player with a margin so that there is no doubt. I was expecting it to improve the virtues of Ref-7 to some margin but we found CD8 as a remarkably different sounding player than CD7. CD8 is fast, I mean really fast compared to Ref-7. Ref-7 seems like having a larger soundstage with larger instruments but in terms of accuracy and pinpoint imaging CD8 did everything right. CD8 has a darker background, better resolution in resolving instruments and inner details. Highs are better defined. It has a better authority and control over any frequency band. CD7 plays more forward compared to CD8. CD8 has a sounstage deeper and more behind the speakers. It is more effortless.

At the end of the listening test we also compared CD8 with my analog setup (Acoustic Solid Royal tt, Graham Phantom tonearm, Transfiguration Orpheus cartridge, ARC PH-7) to see really how close it gets to analog which is my current reference source in my setup. I might say CD8 is one more step closer to analog presentation than CD7. There is still a gap between my analog and my digital sources but it is narrower. So to me, CD8 is that good.

CD8 is my new digital source.