Anybody Felt Lower-End ARC preamps Bass-Shy?

Ryder, define enough bass please. Without hearing your system how can anyone know how well bass is reproduced by it?

I had an LS-15, the older version with the REL capacitors and it did lack bass impact and drive. I upgraded the caps to TRT Dynamicaps and the bass performance was improved big time. I can't call the LS-15 with Dynamicaps bass shy at all. Your LS-16 has Infinicaps, same is in my LS-25.
My point is that the bass on the LS-15 with TRT Dynamicaps was not any better or worst than I now have with LS-25. It's the same as far as I can tell. The added advantage of LS-25 is its adjustable gain and this means you can up the gain to drive your amp harder to give more bass, but it may be at the expense of top end smoothness and midrange may become a bit forward sounding.

My suggestions to you to improve on the bass in your system:
Get the single-ended interconnects out of there.
ARC performs better when run balanced. So is your Krell cdp and Plinius amp. You have to run balanced from player all the way into the amp balanced. This will get you 6db more out of the preamp into the amp and will drive the amp better and I am pretty sure bass will get tighter, plus you will lower the overall noise floor and resolution will be better.

Also, try some NOS tubes in the LS-16. I don't know what you're using there right now, but I am using Mullard made by Amperex in Holland NOS 6922 tubes from Brent Jessee and these tubes do bass on completely different level than the stock Sovtek or Eh tubes do.

Bottom line is, you have to experiment.

Good luck.

I had an LS15 and bass was not one of its strengths. It was replaced by a VAC Renaissance which does do bass with impact but of course there is a substantail price difference too. I would guess the more expensive ARC preamps would offer more bass.

I owned an LS-25 mk1 (6922tubes) Infinicaps for many years. While the bass went fairly low, rhythmic drive/impact was sorely lacking.

Ryder, with so many variables in the system, amp, preamp, cd player, cables, subwoofer, settings, placement, recordings, it is tough to have any idea if you have a lack of bass and if so, where it might be coming from.

One thing I have discovered with some of my customers is the importance of finding out if they experience a lack of bass all the time or just with some recordings.

What music/recordings do you listen to? Is the bass great with some and not with others, or does it feel light weight all of the time? That might help to shed light on what you are experiencing.

10-02-07: Reb1208
I owned an LS-25 mk1 (6922tubes) Infinicaps for many years. While the bass went fairly low, rhythmic drive/impact was sorely lacking.

In relation to what other tube preamp?