AR Ref 600s Best for Genesis2?

Jimj: Not only are you insulting, but you also must have very limited auditioning experience. The Ref 600s were the biggest disappointment in the ARC line. The Ref 300s blew them away in terms of musicality as did the VT100MKII & 200MKII. I have a great deal of experience with all of the ARC equipment that we are talking about and unless you are talking about the newest versions, I hold to my original post.

If you own them and need to justify to yourself how good they are, fine. I just know the truth.

Suchtan: Just as a note, I sold a pair of Ref 600 MKIIs for $15,700 about 3-4 months ago. I had a very tough time selling them.

Sorry to change the subject, but has anyone compared the sound of the ARC amps before and after the new JFET input upgrade? I'm particularly interested in how the input change affects the timbre of the sound.

Jonathan, thanks for your very informative post. Otherwise, I may get the bad idea of owning the REF 600. I understand you have the BAT VK 150SE. How do they compare to other tube amps at or around the same price bracket?
Suchart

fwiw.. i have to completely disagree with Jtinn, specifically the statement: "thin sounding, tonally inaccurate, hotter than a radiator with bloated bass as
well as a huge noisefloor". that is a total bunch of concocted rubbish. my close friend owns Genesis 201's, and he tried a plethora of expensive amps to find the best for the mid/tweet panels. among those in his home audition were the VTL Wotans, ARC Reference 600 mkII, and the ARC Reference 300 mkII's. First we tried the Wotans.. while they sounded pretty good, they had a recessed midrange, which with the 201's midrange ribbon, was not good at all. then we tried the Reference 300's.. wow! these sounded great with the panels. Then we tried the Ref 600's. This was rather interesting. While the Ref 300's sounded a bit better in producing "bloom", they were actually slower during transcient attacks through the Gen ribbon's. We concluded that the larger capacitor power reserve in the 600's controlled the mid/tweet panels in the Gen's much better than the 300's. As far as tonality, the Ref 300's had a slight improvement over the Ref 600's.. I would attribute that to the newly designed JFET/6H30 input stage,
but neither amps had any tonal "anomalies". We also noticed that the 600's ran fairly cool with the easy to drive mid/tweet panel load. We were able to turn the fans down with the variable control because the tube output heat wasn't that bad with the panels. in the end my friend and i both agreed that for the genesis 201's the Ref 600's controlled the panels with better authority and accuracy than the Ref 300's.. and with the fans turned down the heat was a moot issue.. Good luck in your search!

I agree with the last response. Its difficult to find fault with the 600s. Certaintly, major crtitisms are unfair and inaccurate. No amplifier handles transients on orchestral passages as the 600s. There is no mid-bass bloat, unless one is mistaking deep controlled bass for bloat. Deep bass is a good thing. Tonally inaccurate is so wide of the mark there's not much to say. The tone is realistic and accurate, but not colored and euphonic as many tube amps. The Bat Amp is far less tonally accurate. I also think there is no such thing as too much control. You get what your willing to pay for and all else masks hidden desires or agendas.