ARC amplifier with Conrad Johnson Preamp

@cleeds it might be true , tho ARC said the only down sound will be loss of volume level. I asked few other folks and they agreed on that not decreasing the sound quality. But TBH you might be right , no real clue over here.😅

I have owned both the ARC ref75se and CJ Premier 14. The two brands work well together it gives you a ying and yang combination. Subsequent CJ pre-amps have better defined bass than the 14.

@welcher firstly it’s great to hear that!

between

1 cj premier 14

2 cj 17ls

3 cj et6

4 arc ref3

1 cheapest 4 most expensive.

take in consideration that if I buy the the premier 14 I have around 1.7k-2k more left for a better speaker. But tbh I don’t have a clue if the arc ref3 is worth or not . If it is maybe I should go with it.
which 1 would you think will benefit the most??

I heard the et6 doesn’t have the same sweet tubey sound as the old cj

The CJ Premier 14 is a sleeper and will out perform many new preamps in the sub$7500 space. The board floats and has 4 screws that hold it place for shipping. Very musical and detailed. Very easy to just sit back and listened to. I liked it better than my ET 5 and used it for many years. The Premier 17 is a good second choice. However the Premier 14 uses 6GK5 tubes, which are hard to find. Upscale Audio has a stock of NOS so does one dealer in the UK. Call Upscale to make sure that you can get a back up supply of the tubes. It is easy on tubes but NOS can get noisy.