Distortion with ARC Ref 150 and Maggie 3.7


I have this problem that drive me nuts for quite a while. I purchased a like new fully balanced ARC Ref 150 tubes amp through Audiogon for my single ended only CAT SL1 Ultimate preamp and connected both with a RCA to XLR interconnect. It sounded okay with most recording but has awful distortion with certain recording specifically piano and vocal. Some of this recording happens almost on entire record but some only on certain musical passage. Most of the time with higher pitch or peak of music or higher volume.

For your information I listen to vinyl only most of the time and more on Jazz music. Other component listed as follow:

Turntable: Sota Nova, Tonearm: Origin Live Illustrious, Cartridge: Dynavector XV1-S, Step up transformer: Bob's Device CineMag 1131 (Blue) feeding directly to CAT's own phonostage, Speaker: Magneplanar Magnepan 3.7. Power cords, ICs, Speaker cable, Autoformer: Paul Speltz Anti-Cable.

Trouble shooting which has been done includes: checking preamp tubes condition and checking power amp bias. Since ARC claims their Ref 150 was design for balanced preamp only so I also tested by replacing it with single ended tubes amp but the distortion remain. As for the cartridge I believe I have done the alignment pretty accurate with the Mint's Best Tractor but not very sure with the azimuth.

While tested with my other 2 pair of speakers, one which has higher spec show the same problem while the lower spec one seems get rid of distortion. So I suspected the issue probably was with the new Maggie. Called the dealer and he performed a test with his transistor amp with no distortion at all. So he assumed my Maggie is okay. Is it true that the Maggie only good with transistor amps?

By now it leaves me with total confusion! Sincerely hope fellow audiophile here could give me some advice and save me from this endless misery !

Thanks very much in advance!
pakwong
Pakwong, using zeros will not help, and could possibly hurt. Tube amps like the ARC Ref 150 work best if the speakers impedance is perfectly flat as a function of frequency response.

Take a look at John Atkinson's bench test results of the Ref 150 and look at his measurements of output power and distortion as a function of speaker impedance. The amp's ability to produce clean power is attenuated if the load impedance deviates from the amp's nominal impedance at the relevant output tap.

This is not a big issue because as Al (Almarg) recently remarked, a rough rule of thumb is that an amp's power output demand is roughly 50/50 at the 300 Hz frequency. Stated differently, one would do better to match the speaker impedance in the low bass/midrange frequencies to the amp's nominal impedance at the relevant output tap.

An example might help. If your Maggies present a flat 4 ohm impedance load as a function of frequency response, then I surmise that the Ref 150 will deliver close to its rated 150 wpc channel with the least distortion ... if the 4 ohm taps are used. By contrast, if the Maggies impedance is between 3 and 5 ohms between 20 Hz and 500 Hz power region, then rises to 8 ohms thereafter, I surmise that the Ref will still do a pretty good job delivering clean power into that load if the 4 ohm taps are used.

OTOH, if the Maggies impedance is between 3 and 5 ohms between 20 Hz and 500 Hz, then rises to 8 and 15 ohms thereafter, I surmise that the Ref ability to deliver clean power may be a tad attenuated if the 8 ohm taps are used. The reason is the amp is being asked to drive a low impedance load in the power range when speaker and amp impedance is not well matched.

Hope this helps. In the end, most tubies like me say, go with what sounds best. Nevertheless, I am a little concerned as to whether the Ref 150 can bring out the best in the Maggies.
I think, you overload your phonsection. Distortion has nothing to do with Antiskate, Azimuth or wrong alignment when you only can hear it in the upper frequencies when the dynamics start to rise. "This" kind of distortion in Phono is normally the result when the SUT is too strong( or the cartridge is too strong for the SUT, you can see it this ways or the other way). 0.3mV MC run normally easy with 60-63dB, sometimes a bit more but not much. Try to loan a SUT with 10dB less, just for a check or when one of your friends owns a cartridge with 0.20mV, try to loan it. Next is the output power from your Preamp to your power amp. When the Pre drives the amp easily, this kind of distortion becomes much more present even at lower volume.
Sorry that I was lazy in my response above. I should have
stated what Al, (as usual, very highly detailed and correct.
We are really lucky to have Al on here. Yeah, I'm a fanboy)
did about the gain(s).

I did look up all the gain stages, but didn't really get
into it before. If you have 26 + 26 + 47 that's 99db of
gain which is WAY TOO HIGH! That really leads me to
determine that the distortion is coming from overloading. I
can almost guarantee that's your problem.

Try taking out the SUT and see what happens.
Thanks for valuable input from all!

Yes, trouble shooting procedures which I've been carried out also includes bypassing the SUT and CAT SL1 in the system, by using a EAR 834P phono preamp that comes with volume control and MM/MC function connected directly between the tonearm and Ref 150. Same thing happens! So I assumed there is no issue with overloading from the SUT and preamp.

Last night I did a final test by listening again to digital sources from a Wadia 381i CD player connected to line stage of the CAT SL1. To my surprise, the same distortion also happens on the digital source which I thought didn't exist! I'm not a big fan of digital hence very seldom listen to it. The last time I listened to it were kind of background listening with lower volume. This time I crank up the volume control to about the same level while listening to LPs and the same distortion shows off immediately!

In the mean time, I also tried listening closely to the speakers and found that the distortion appears almost on all frequency including bass while cranking up the volume.

With these latest discovery I began to suspect that the true problem might be coming form either the Ref 150 or the Maggies.

Any thought?

Thanks again!
BTW, I do agree that my system sounds more linear and faithful to the source by connecting the 4 ohms tap directly to the Maggie.

Thinking about the beginning when I first bought the Ref 150, it was used to drive my previous KEF 201/2 speakers and from that time on I started to experienced distortion on certain recording. Only not as severe as with the Maggie. Perhaps the Maggie's higher resolution and the recently purchased XV-1S which replaced the XX2 has made the issue worst.

If both KEF and Maggie suffer the same distortion from the Ref 150, and no sign of anomalies from other components, is it possible that I've purchased a defected Ref 150? Or simply because the Ref 150 did not match the Maggie perfectly?