Thoughts on Audio Research D70

@Smoffat: The reason why I sold my CL120 (and CL150 of course) was the solid state input and gain stages.
I believe in the Counterpoint (Michael Elliot) philosophy of getting the small signal stage as tubey and transparent as possible and use whatever as the output stage as it has the least influence to the sound.

The 10uF caps had to be output caps (from pre to power) or from phono to pre. Upgrading those to any exotic brand like Duelund or Mundorf or VCap would be cost/size prohibitive.

The coupling caps within each device had to be 2uF or under I imagine. But until I get to see the schematic I cant comment.

Anyway, upgrading the small signal coupling caps would have a more noticeable benefit than the output caps.

JohnsonWu, I just don't agree with your assessment of the sound that the older ARC amps exhibit. My D70Mk2 has wowed all of the a'phile group that has heard it in my system. So much so, that one of the group traded a BAT VK75SE for a pair of M100's ( with the same wonder caps) and never looked back after he heard my ARC/CAT set up.
I'm sure you are aware that ceramic tweeters will exhibit glare and hardness with aplomb. The same can be said, to a slightly lesser extent, for the beryllium tweeters in your Utopia's. A hard dome can be bright and exhibit glare IF any of the upstream components are at all bright...speaker cables, preamp, front end, amp etc.
I believe and i think many others are beginning to believe also, that a silk dome or a ribbon is far less likely to exhibit this behavior than a hard ceramic or metal dome. Which, if I'm not mistaken is one of the reasons that Dave Wilson chose a silk dome for his top of the line speaker, the Alexandria XLF. I guess when it comes to this discussion, YMMV.

@DaveyF: It's AOK... to each his own.

I am writing this echoing my opinion which concur with that of many others, esp on the more DIY oriented forums.
Perhaps too many people who posted similar opinions have metal dome or ribbon tweeters that need some balance.

BTW I didnt come up with the idea of replacing the Rel+Wonder combo with Inifinicaps. It was a suggestion by none other than Leonard @ Audio Research.

I have some 1mfd@600V teflon caps if you are interested...

I have a batch of 0.1, 0.22, and 0.47 FT3s laying around.
Cant use them anywhere other than my point to point wired projects. Too big.
All my Vcaps are deployed in various pcs of existing gear.
Are yours branded ones or generic Russian? Definitely not the Psvane Audio Teflon leaded caps right?
Tried to send you a PM but cant get around this user interface merry go round (pun somewhat intended relative to the Moncrief merry go round :) )