Mark Levinson 32 or Audio Research Reference 3

I own a Levinson No. 32 preamp (includes phonostage cards). It is currently a back up unit (my primary unit is an Emotive Audio Epifania with remote control). I really like its flexibility and incredibly useful remotely controlled features. As far as the sound, frankly, there is something missing. Yes, it is a pleasant sounding unit and does not do serious damage to the sound (the same cannot be said of the pre-Reference 3 AR linestages which sound extremely bleached and unpleasant to me). However, the No. 32 is a touch too "polite" sounding to me and slightly less lively sounding than the better tube units.

I've only briefly heard the Ref. 3 and Ref. 5, so I don't know their full capability, but, I do know they are substantially better sounding, to me anyway, than prior AR gear.

If you can do without remote control, the Audionote (uk), Kondo, and Shindo stuff should be auditioned. These tend to be on the warmer side of neutral, but, don't suffer from being sluggish sounding as a result.

I only briefy heard the Veloce (battery powered tube linestage) at an audio show, but, what I heard was enough to make me at least think about it as a possible purchase (it is remotely controlled, a must for me).

I would be extremely reluctant to purchase an expensive used Madrigal product unless you have a solid preexisting relationship with them - there have been a lot of nightmare stories reported on this and other forums over the years about Harmon's service involving used Madrigal gear (it seems the problems started when the Madrigal facility in Connecticut was closed six or seven years ago).

That said, I tend to prefer top-shelf solid-state preamps over tubed ones because they layer space as well as the best tube pre's, but are quieter, the noise floor in amplification components being of paramount importance in the very high-resolution systems these pieces tend to be used in. While I understand that the Ref 3 is very quiet for a tubed unit, the 32 regenerates power and is dead quiet, something you will clearly hear and come to appreciate quickly.

I also run my non-tube amp components 24/7 and do not know whether the 6550 in the Ref 3's power supply would hold up in 24/7 use (very possibly, but I would need to know), and if it doesn't, whether it is absolutely safe at the time of failure, whether failure of that tube takes out a resistor requiring soldering, etc. I have no fear about the small signal tubes in that preamp, but output tubes are another matter and can arc and engage in other scary pyrotechnics when they die. Does anyone know what kind of voltage the 6550 sees in the Ref 3's power supply?

Finally, the vast majority of tube preamps (ones not using output transformers, which is 99% of them) have difficulty driving long interconnects to the power amp without causing bass rolloff, so if your power amp is more than, say, 3 meters away from your preamp, this could be an issue. Tube preamps also have much higher output impedances than solid-state preamps, causing mismatches with certain amplifiers that again result in bass rolloff. The ARC Ref 3 claims an output impedance of 600 Ohms, but as is usually the case, no frequency range is given with this spec - 600 Ohms is almost surely the nominal rating and it will be significantly higher at low frequencies. If the input impedance on your amp is above 50 kOhms, or if your amp is just a few meters from the preamp, then you're probably okay.

Here is one of many threads that addresses Harmon's service:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1281863487&read&keyw&zzmadrigal+used+service

A slight correction to Raquel's characteristically knowledgeable post.

Long interconnects will cause upper treble rolloff, not bass rolloff, if driven by a preamp having high output impedance (at high frequencies). The higher the capacitance per unit length of the particular cable, and the longer the length of the cable, the greater that effect will be.

Interconnect cable parameters and length have no relation to bass rolloff, at least to the extent that cable effects are technically explainable and predictable. As indicated, bass rolloff will result if all three of the following conditions are present:

1)Power amp input impedance is low, e.g., significantly less than 50K.
2)Preamp output impedance is high.
3)Preamp output impedance rises significantly as frequency decreases and approaches 20Hz.

Those three conditions most commonly occur when a tube preamp having a coupling capacitor at its output (as most do) drives a solid state power amp.

Regards,
-- Al

And I might add that there are tube preamps (with direct-coupled outputs no less) that can drive 100 feet of interconnect with ease.

So why is it down to just these two preamps? Is it a price thing?

Trance,

As I mentioned above, I own a Ref. No. 32, though I don't think it delivers "ultimate" performance. It is, quite decent sounding, and my observation of its sonic merits come from listening to it in a system that does not have other Levinson components. As a general observation, manufacturers design their products to work well together, so a Reference No. 32 in a system with Levinson amplifiers will probably work better than the Levinson works in my system.

I have had the opportunity to try different combinations of gear. One of the things I've noticed is that the combination of a tube linestage with solid state amplifiers tends to be the most unpredictable of combinations. I know there are a lot of people who think that one can get the best of both worlds this way, but, often I find otherwise. It is just hard to predict the final outcome. Yes, I've heard such combinations work well (e.g., Veloce linestage into the incredibly expensive Soulution amps), I am just saying the result is unpredictable.

As Raquel mentioned above, there are also practical issues with mixing the two. I don't like to keep tube gear on all the time. On the other hand, I think solid state amps take forever to warm up and are best left on all the time. Unless you can effectively mute either the amp or linestage, you would have an issue with turn-on/turn-off noise if you were to turn off the linestage while keeping the amp fired up.