The Audio Research Reference 10 is here $30k

Pops, if you can pick up a used PH-7, I think you will be quite happy. I spent serious bucks to move up to the PH-8. I am not convinced the PH-8 is leagues better than the PH-7. I'm not even sure the PH-8 is even better than the PH-7 -- yikes, heresy!

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Hey Bif, your perspective was just the cure for my upgradeitis. Thank you. Funny thing is, I'm sure my system sounds good, and I really enjoy it. But those doggone Audio Research factory product descriptions of their latest and newest Reference offerings always subliminally always make me wonder 'what if'.
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HiFi News in the UK reviewed the unit in the latest March edition. Ken Kessler who reviewed it is an ARC fan and uses a Ref 5. He was pretty enthusiastic and felt it to be the best Pre he has heard. The magazine is as reliable as magazines, with the commercial pressures on them, ever get, bur still $30000.

Nomenclature becomes a problem, just how many reference units can you have, without debasing the term. Perhaps "universe Reference" or "Lord High Executioner Pre amp"

The only AR preamps I've heard and owned were the SP-11 and the LS3. I liked them both, and AR has every right to market and price as they like, but it seems like they are playing some type of Catch-the-new-Best thing, dangling something even better every six to nine months.

Can there really be 21 levels of better (not counting SE additions) in a linestage since my LS3? Does adding an SE option to a Ref 5 really get you 85% to an Anniversary Edition? For something rather basic like a linestage that is basically using the same technology over the last decades, how can there be $20,000 worth of better guts and engineering costs between a Ref3 at (gasp) $10,000 and a Ref10 at $30,000. Feels like a bubble.

Of course, the answer is that they can sell them and people want them, so it's all in ones perspective, passion, level of belief, and tax bracket.

I hate to break this to yall, there are some purchase audio components NOT just for the sound. Yep, it's TRUE. I know many simply NEEDS the status of ownership and equates the latest and most expensive to the best.

Companies llke ARC, VAC ... are opportunistic to capitalize on this behavior. As long as there are demand, they will supply them with the products and LAUGHING all the way to the bank.

I'm as guilty as most falling in this trap and working building a system at a REASONABLE (to me) price. Cables are easy but the rest have been a CHALLENGE.