ARC's new REF-75

I guess you don't like ARC...Or just fed up with the state of the industry in general?

>>I guess you don't like ARC....Or just fed up with the state of the industry in general?<<

Some of both. There was a time when I loved ARC products. Today ARC makes some good preamps, and their DACs have been sonically interesting. It's in their power amps where they've taken a wrong turn, in my view.

I've been spending my own money on audio for a little over 40 years. It's not that I'm so old as that I started young, and I'm old *enough* to have experienced a more successful time in the industry. Our industry has dug itself into a hole and not being happy with nearly complete cultural irrelevance, it is digging faster. There are many reasons for this, but among them is products like the REF 75: over-resolving at the expense of natural tone; current into any load at the expense of nuance and clarity; leftover grunge due to the topology; and in this case lock you into one power tube by one maker.

I sent a friend to the show who is not an audiophile. He appreciates my systems, which has led him to begin considering spending real money on audio. I said, "considering." He didn't go to the show the same day as me. But I wanted to know what a music lover and musician who has had little exposure to our industry today, likes, dislikes, thinks. I didn't prompt him about anything. Just suggested he go, hear everything he can.

"I heard a lot of sound but not much that sounded like music." That was his first assessment. He loved what he heard in one room and one room only: The Audience room when the ClairAudient One was playing. A tiny $1800 speaker blew away the giants. Now, that did happen to be the best sound at the show, though I wish they had demo'd the 2+2. And it was the best sound of the show because it was the most coherent and it struck the right balance between resolution and tone. It was also playing via the most natural solid state amp at the show.

He couldn't really relate to much of the rest of it, though some rooms sounded closer to music than others. His conclusion was that the worst rooms were those with the most imposing gear. With a few exceptions, that's my experience too. If it's garish and imposing, it's probably not going to sound much like music. The little REF 75 is only small in the context of the many bigger amps on display, but it's by no means small, alone. It does exemplify however the prevailing sound that's come to be associated with high-end cred: cold, spatially flattened, inorganic, super clean, resolving beyond the actual acoustic experience of hearing music performed, bleached of tone, overdamping of decay, incapable of communicating the seduction and full emotion of the music passing through the gear.

And the trouble is, once you no longer know what the full emotion and tonal integrity of music sounds like in real terms, then something synthetic becomes the new measure. That's where we are now, and that's what was abundant at the Newport show. I could not reconcile the groupthink enthusiasm I heard expressed for 97% of the gear demonstrated, with what I was actually hearing.

But there was beauty and truth in about 3% of it, and that's what keeps my interest. It just wasn't coming from the likes of ARC, Wilson, VTL, Scaena, Focal, et al. As long as the mythmakers in the industry, and the people who extend them credibility, believe that Wilson and Focal, to spotlight two egregious offenders, make musically convincing speakers, the whole industry will be a headscratcher to anyone coming from outside who can't reconcile their sonics with how music heard in performance actually sounds. In high end audio, it's the 3% who get it in the realm of right.

Phil

So much from a Guru whose references are Klimo and Kent. ;)

>>So much from a Guru whose references are Klimo and Kent.<<

Kent? I've never owned the Klimo Kent amp. The Klimo Merlino Gold spent 6 years in my system -- and it was and remains excellent -- but the change from Zu Definition 2 to Definition 4 warranted a change in preamps.

My current preamps are Melody Pure Black 101, Audion Premier, S&B TVC. My current amps are Audion Golden Dream 300B PSET, Audion Black Shadow 845 SET, Quad II Jubilee. Of course, that's what I own. I've heard most of what the industry sells, and don't own most of it by choice.

Phil

@213cobra, based on this list of your current gear apprently you savor space, delicacy, and texture over pace and the somehat glassy openness that is characteristic of the current generation Audio Research gear (in their stock form) that draws the attention of audio buyers.
I have high regards of your opinion but what I found is those with deep pockets to buy new gear often seek out components with a sonic signature that leaps out at them.
HOwever, I must disagree with you classifying VTL and Focal into the mix of myth makers. IMO the current VTLs in pentode mode will leap out at you, not in triode mode. As for Focal, anything particular you dislike about them?