Does the ARC Ref5 sound better than Ref2/3 ?

I had an ARC Ref2MkII for a couple of years and loved it.
Nevertheless: ARC announced the Ref3, and finally the Ref5.
An the press was ranking the Ref3 much above the Ref2, and the Ref5 much above the Ref3. (I will not consider the Anniversary Edition due to the huge price difference).

So I decided to test the Ref5 vs my Ref2MkII.

To give you a rough feeling about the environment I used for testing: I have a dedicated listening room sized approx 400sft (36sqm). I only play CDs, using an Oracle Drive and a Jadis Tube D/A converter. My speakers are french Triangle, model Magellan Grant Concert, and two matching subwoofers from Triangle, model Meteor0.4
(The reason for the two subwoofers is that the Magellan have incedible good mids and highs, but the bass is - for my personal taste - a bit weak. But with the subwoofers - being adjustable in crossover frequency and volume, having a separate power amp, being directly connected to the main out on the preamp - the combination a absolutly great).
My power amps are (old but still ok) ARC VT150 monos.
I use to play mostly on mid volume. I hear many styles of music: classics, rock, some pop, a bit jazz, sometimes more modern staff.

So enough of the environment, back to the preamp comparison.

I share with you my experience in chronological order.
(One remark: my Ref2 has roughly 400 hours tube time, and the Ref is a prowned one with approx 300 hours).

The very first impression of the Ref5 was simply disappointing. It sounded as if all the deep bass frequences were gone. The "high" bass was there (and did sound excellent, by the way).
This fact struck me so much that I could nit concentrate on the sound quality, because I was simply missing an important part of the music!

The solution was quite simple: I increased the output of the subwoofers (since I have two of them I use an untypical high crossover frequency of 100 Hz) - anf here
it was back again!

So NOW I could start comparing the sound quality.

My next impression was that the Ref5 was - hard to describe - a bit more diffucult to love at the start.
The sound seems to be more fare away from the listener,
not so involving. In fact this is finally positive, a more open soundstage.

When switching back to the Ref2, it seems to overstress the low-end bass in comparison, and somehow the mod/voice area.

When hearing both of them only in a short test, the Ref2 seems to be more appealing, easier to grasp.

When listening longer, the Ref5 shows all it advantages: a larger soundstage, broader and deeper, a finer charactarization of the single instruments, a more balanced sound profile (no part of the music seems to dominate), even more dynamic (although the Ref2 is not bad in that respect). And the bass is more precise (you can "see" the drums more than with the Ref2), and even in the low bass the separation is better (e.g. playing the deepest tones on a piono - this tends to sound like thunder, not like single tones. This is much better with the Ref5).

So to put it in nutshell: if you like the ARC style and the Ref1 or Ref2 - you will finally love the Ref5 even more.
(Only one drawback: if you love deep, full bass and cannot adjust your speakers or anything else: be sure to test the Ref5 before upgrading).

My dealer said the mainly is in line with the experience from other customers. The Ref3 is said to be somewhere in between in all repects.

I hope this experience is helpful to share - any omments welcome!