Audio Research Ref. 210 questions

Mantis007, I was communicating with someone who has the 210's and uses Elrod power cords and said the difference was very positive.

Why did you sell the Lamm's and Cary's?

The Cary amps you had, what would you say the difference is between these and the ARC 210's and also Lamm. You have had some great amps in you system.

Thanks for the info. regarding the fans in the 210's, sounds easy enough and would resolve that problem.

Hi Dev, thanks for the pc info. As far as your question: I sold the Cary's because I bought some Innersound Kaya electrostats. I called Cary and they said not to use the 211's with the Kaya's. The Kaya's have a wicked dip to .9 ohm with a 75 degree phase angle. Not good for the 211's. I decided not to try it ;) SO, I got the Lamms because they are very good with a difficult load(Kaya). I sold the Kaya's and got the Ushers. The Ushers sounded VERY good with the Lamms but I wanted a bit more power and missed the sound of a pure tube amp. I'm still getting used to the 210's. I didn't really like them at first - their presentation is much more laid back and a bit distant compared to the M1.2's. I had to move my listening chair up about 1'closer to the speakers - things sound much better now. I do think the Lamms had better control over the Ushers bass. I can't really compare how the 211's sounded because I only used them with the Vandersteen 5A's I sold. The 211's are very nice amps, especially with upgraded tubes ;)

I had a listen to the ref 210's for a few minutes and even at low volumes in a cold room the fans were churning away LOUDLY.
I think the 210's sounded quite good, but I could not get my head around why the fans were so loud, especially since the amps did not seem hot and volume was low. I can only imagine how loud the fan would be at high volumes.

Is this normal for this amplifier??

Does cutting the fans out make reliability an issue??

Hi, the question I have is a bit off topic I'm afraid. Sorry for that.

Quote from Mantis: "The Ushers sounded VERY good with the Lamms but I wanted a bit more power and missed the sound of a pure tube amp."

Some people/experts believe that there is no such thing as "tube" sound or the sound of a pure tube unit in comparison with a pure solid state one (provided that both are very well executed high quality units). So why do many audiophiles prefer tubes over solid state? There have to be inherent differences in "sound" between the two basic concepts in amplification. I do not believe that the difference are only due to "colorations". What do you think?

Chris

Chris

I have tried to luv SS amps quite a few times but keep on gojng back to tubes. IMO a nice tube amp will always have over its SS counterpart
- 3d soundstage where SS in comparison can sounewhat 2 dimensional and flat
- tonal meat on instruments whereas SS tends to just sound thinner
- mids and high frequencies on a great tube amp seem to float in space, flow from note to note and still be very transparent
- SS bass when volume is pumped up very loud can have a tendancy to get tighter and tighter, whereas tube bass spreads a little to give a slightly fatter sound - whicj IMO sounds more lifelike