Anybody Felt Lower-End ARC preamps Bass-Shy?

I have had the LS-16 in my system and the bass response was rather poor in the upper registers.

Thanks for all responses.

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

That is the reason why I have asked if anyone has got better bass after upgrading to a better preamp. Most questions posed in the forums are often subjective and opinions are accepted based on rationale.

Anyway I appreciate your advice on running the whole system balanced. Unfortunately I can't since I have my subwoofer inserted in between the LS-16 and Plinius amp. My speakers are high-passed. If I run full-balanced, I can't hook up the sub in high-pass configuration and my speakers are limited to 35Hz only. Furthermore, I reckon the bass roll-off much higher with their current placement. Without the sub, the bass is much weaker compared to what I'm getting now. I have balanced cable from my Krell CD to the LS-16 though.

Since you mentioned the bass on the LS-25 may not be too different from the LS-16, I guess I can be rest assured it's putting out decent bass. Looks like I have to keep experimenting.

Music used was mainly Pat Metheny's earlier works "Letter From Home"(which happens to be my most listened record now), and "Still Life Talking".

May be other variables involved. I was hoping the bass can be slightly more visceral. Will keep experimenting.

Thanks for all inputs and advice.

I would suggest for more pure sound to use the single ended outs from your preamp for the sub and use the balanced outs to your amp. Let the mains run full range. This will take the extra electronis from the crossover out of the mains which should give a much richer sound.

Have you checked if the output impedence of the preamp e.g 100 Ohms is compatible to the input impedence of the power amp e.g 20 KOhms? Anything less than 200 (20000/100) can mean bass will suffer. ARC will normally state the minimum input impedence of power amps necessary for its preamps.

I'm not familiar with the mentioned Metheny discs. But being "earlier" works, as you say, is it possible these records are just lacking the ultimate bass?

You may want to try running some sort of a reference cd, may be even stereophile test cd 1 or 2 with bass frequency test tones.
Or may be get a cd with plenty of bass. I recommend Brian Bromberg "Wood II" cd that I often use for bass test and actually enjoy listening. In case you are not familiar with Bromberg, he plays acoustic double-bass and the recording quality on "Wood II" is very good.