ARC with CJ?


Has anyone tried Audio Research pre amp with a CJ power amps? Do they match well? Intersting!
luna
I've never tried to, so I don't know.
However, back when I sold high-end, including ARC, neither ARC, nor CJ, ever let the same dealer carry both lines. At the time, no other tube product company of which we were aware had such a policy, so it was kind of weird. Like two different religious sects that hated each other.
As such, I never tried the two in combination with each other, which would have been heretical.
Although, since they never even made face plates that could match each other in color, mating the two brands seems dubious.
CJ amps have 100K input to accommodate tube preamps. Any preamp therefore should work if the gain is reasonable. My experience, however, has been that CJ preamps have excessive gain when used with CJ amps. Go figure.
Why would you want seems like a good question. Not that it is a bad match, but it seems to be a combo that few would pursue.
I have paired both an ARC LS-15 and LS-25 with a CJ MF2200. It sounded fine. I recently bought a used Sonographe SA-400 on eBay that I am going to test w/ the LS-15.

"Why would you do that?"... I suspect that some of the previous posters are shocked at the prospect of audio miscegenation represented by pairing ARC and CJ products. Yes, they overlap the same space. Yes, their reputations are build on historically different sound signatures. But go ahead and try it. Either you will like it or not.
Well, My reason for doing that is I have now a Herron VTSP2 Pre with CJ Premire 350. I also have an ARC VT100ii laying around. I am thinking of getting the ARC Ref.2 to replace the Herron as the VT100 needs balanced input to sound its best.