CJ GAT Preamp VS ART 3 which one is the best?

Hi Frank! I was told by one insider at CJ about it as well as heard Lew's comments himself from last CES 2009. In addition, one of audio guru who used to work for Avantgarde told me the same thing when he went to his client's house to help him with the setup. His client used to own original ART but not ART 3 and owns GAT now. I myself find this fact hard to believe, but my longtime CJ dealer also told me the same thing that less is better. I mean one chassis and less tubes are much better. I guess we'll just have to wait and see as I was gonna go buy ART 3 myself if I can find one. BTW, my CJ dealer is very trustworthy and he never tries to sell more expensive stuff if not need to so I kind of believe him 80% on this.

Of course any dealer is going to say newer is better - he needs to make a living.

I have hade my cj ART3 for about 5 weeks now and I asked Lew at cj his thoughts of the GAT were before I bought the ART3.

One main difference was that the GAT has SS output to enable very low output impedance and back to 6922's for the gain. thank god for that.
In real life very few cables have issues with the ART3. I have yet to use one that has issues in driving speakers. I think the specs of low ouput impedance might be more " specs driven importance" for some audiophiles in ASIA.

Lew felt that the GAT was perhaps a little better, however due to the monoblock nature of the ART, it does have more substantial power supplies and is still a COST NO OBJECT design.

Lew is a very straight shooter and not partial to exaggerating, he also said he uses the ART3 at home.

Anyway, he said the GAT is very much better than the ACT series 2 which is more of the comparison cj market, cj are aiming for as there are so small numbers of ART.

my view, try to find a older Art series 1 or series 2 and upgrade it to ART3 and be happy for a very long time.
If not I am sure the GAT will be very nice and a return to form for cj after the ACT2

Me I am even tossing up whether to sell my ART1 or use it for a 2nd system

cheers

More does not forcefully mean better. I had an ACT2 series 1 and a series 2 side by side for some time. The series 2 was really better in my system. But the power supply of the series 2 is simpler and has less components than the series 1, everything else being quite similar.
I have owned a cj ART2 and moved to an ACT2. Still thinking it was a mistake...

Thanks Sinchan007, that helps. I have a call in to Lew to discuss this as well but it really does put him in a difficult position to pit one SOTA design against another. While I do like simplicity, I have to wonder if CJ went back to the one chassis designs to keep costs down. I have always loved the dual chassis design with the five 6922s linked in parallel. I also dislike the 6H30 tube so at least the GAT disposed of that.

Downunder, thanks as well. I always find it fairly instuctive when I discover what the designer/manufacturer actually uses in his/her own system. The fact the Lew uses an ART 3 at home does tell me something. For reasons that aren't important here, it would cost me less to get a GAT right now than upgrade my CJ (and that even presumes selling my ART 2 at a fire sale price given the market). That said, I am still leaning toward the ART 3.

Frank

Hi Frank

Yea I put Lew into a difficult position when I asked which sounded better, as cj is also in the business of selling new products.
From talking to Lew it seemed that the new GAT is the best design they can make from one chassis, as the ART was the best they could make from two chassis.
Cost is also a factor as 25k makes the ART3 only available to a select few - not that 20k is chump change.

I have a feeling the CT5 will go soon and be replaced with some trickle down tech from the GAT.

ps, you can buy the ART3 on audiogon at the moment and sell your ART2 to some lucky audophile.

cheers have fun