Any Comparisons between VTL 7.5 & ARC Ref 3

There is just one BIG question for me: Can you(or even M.Colloms-I respect him very much) really compare ARC REF3 and CJ ACT2 Series 2? One(ARC) is fully balanced design which IMHO sound much better when used in balanced(as intended) mode. In SE mode you loose much of its sound qualities IMO. CJ ACT2 Series 2 is on the other hand SE design and sound very best when used with amps that are not balanced. Try to connect ACT2 to ARC REF110 with adaptors and you will get totally crappy sound-I am speaking here from personal experience...

So, I do not agree at all with M.Colloms that you can compare this two preamps, at least not with the same amp...

On the other hand you can compare VTL TL7.5 MkII with REF3 since both are balanced designes and here you can use the same amp as a reference...

Speaking about Hifi Critic I also like the magazine very much but, I also think that $100 is too much for it. M.Colloms is also biased towards few manufactures, everyone who reads his reviews in last 15 years knows that...

I like Roy Gregory from Hifi+ but, I do not like to quote him despite the fact that some of his reviews are truly excellent(and with few I fully agree which is very rare thing, at least for me)...

My point is that all magazines are not that much important for US-the audiophiles. They are important for the industry... Bad review for some product in major mag can be a kiss of death for that product(or even the manufacturer!)...

Long live the difference in our ears and opinions!

Thanks, Elberoth - perhaps you saw subscription prices for the UK. The HiFi Critic Web site says a 1 year (6 issue) subscription sent to the US is 75 GBP. At present exchange rates that works out to ~$149 USD. I agree that head-to-head comparisons seem to be a thing of the past.

Tim

Scousepasty -> sure you shouldn't buy anything without listening first. But then, you are not able to listen to everything on the market. Good reviews can serve as pre-filters.

Funny thing that you mentioned that you found ARC better than CJ ACT 2. That is EXACTLY what MC did himself in the next issue. So I do not really get your point here.

I do not want to defend MC work. IMO it defends itself and anyone who knows his work back from HiFi News times, knows that. Because even there he was curageous enough to write a bad review of Wilson Audio speakers (himself beeing an owner of X-1 at the time) or Krell (again - Krell KPS20 owner at the time).

Show me a bad review of any big name in JA, MF or ST writing.

BTW -I'm from Poland and I do not know MC personally.

MC also so gave bad reviews to several ARC products namely the VT200 or was it the VM200?? as well as one of ARC's lower rangte pre amps, which ARC re-designed after his review.

The only brand that I have never seem MC give a bad review to is cj.

Elberoth, Fremer also gave a bad review for that amp as well. Fremer has also given a bad review for the top of the range Audio Physic speaker, so telling everyone here that the so called commercial magazines does not give bad reviews is a little misleading.

Mark Mickelson from soundstage was the ONLY reviewer to bring up the serious issues the VTL 7.5 has with tube gain hiss/noise. Use any power amp with over 29db of gain and you are faced with HUGE amounts of tube hiss. Absolutely stupid to design a so called reference pre amp with this issue. OK if you run it with VTL amps only.

Elberoth, I was trying to give a counter view to the HI-FI Critic mag, which you said you strongly recommended. I live in the UK and would not pay the price they are asking for this mag, whose only justification is because 'it has no adverts'.
I used to subscribe to HiFi+ and gave that up when it became just full of RG's reviews and I came to the realisation that one guy cannot review everything thoroughly. I have been reading hi-fi mags since the '70's and have took note of what many reviewers including MC have to say, when selecting equipment to audition - after all they hear a lot more equipment than you or I.
I have read some sharp critism of equipment by JA, etc, so they do give some bad reviews. The only subscription I have at the present is with Stereophile because I find it good value for the cover price but their recorded music reviews are few generally and poor.
Good point about CJ stuff being SE, one of the reasons I rejected it from my system.