Vinyl sounds a bit thin and slightly strident.

Johnss,
Sounds interesting. Could you provide a link to a site that explains your test procedure in more detail?

a) How do you measure the output voltage? By affixing a voltage meter to the rca outs of the preamp?
b) What do you compare the readings to?
c) What test lp do you use and does it provide the necessary benchmarks?
d) Once you have the data, is there a guide on what to do about it?

Thanks, Jeff

I had that problem when I owned a Ruby 2. The line contact stylus Benz uses is a pia to get the VTA right with. Make sure your arm is sloped down in the back a bit and keep the stylus clean as a possible.

Just to expand on my above comment, I bought the ARC PH-2 new together with an ARC VT-130 amp. Afterwards I purchased the factory-sanctioned Infinicap upgrade to replace stock MIT PPMXS coupling caps in the VT-130-- a worthwhile improvement that remediated exactly the problems across FR that you mention. While the PH-2 uses good MIT RTX and Wima film caps in most sections, in four critical coupling positions it has the same MIT PPMXS as the VT-130, and the associated sonic compromise. As by then ARC had replaced PH-2 with PH-3, there was no reason for the factory to revisit selection of piece parts. But trust me on this one, if you pull those four PPMXS output caps and replace with Multicap PPFXS, Mundorf, or equivalent, you will be happy.

PS I still have the PH-2. Subject to its gain limitations, after lite modding it compares favorably with far more expensive phono stages. The PH-3 that followed was a lesser budget piece.

Dgarretson, I like what I'm hearing... My PH-2 has Infinicaps in it now, not sure the model. My LS-7 has Rel-Caps so I suspect they could be upgraded. I spent some time yesterday and rechecked overhang using the VPI supplied protractor and made some adjustments there and subsequently to the VTF and VTA. I had noticed before the changes that the VTF was too low and I don't know how that could be unless either the retaining screw came loose on the counterweight and it moved or my digital scale wasn't calibrated or working properly when I set the arm up. That was a large source of the stridency I was hearing due to mistracking. However, after changing those settings the characteristic that still is lacking is more body/fullness in the midbass. It's not severe but this tends to detract from the emotional richness during playback for me. Do you still think that is a capacitor issue? I haven't experimented with doing any changes to capacitors before although I'm open to suggestions. Can changing the loading affect the midbass? I thought that loading would only change the high frequency rolloff. The cart is loaded at 2.5K Ohm and the capacitance of the Cardas Neutral Reference Phono.

It sounds like the phono stage had a makeover. Over the next week I'll try comparing the PH-2 to a couple of tube phono stages around here. You may just be hearing the leaner tonality of SS. Though not specifically targetting bass response, to generally improve phono you might try something like my spring/sandbox platform, which has been implemented by user Islandman on a Scout. He also likes Mapleshade Nanomounts on VPI JMW arm. An oil coupling cap such Mundorf Silver would also tend to flesh out bass and midrange. I'm sure the PH-2 could be improved significantly with a few hundred dollars of Texas Components TX2575 resistors for loading & in signal path in circuit. This is not too hard to do or to have done by a tech, as ARC freely distributes schematics.