Conrad Johnson ACT2 against Audio Research Ref 3

Ginas:

A'gon member, Jadem6, has just put his SCD-1 through yet another upgrade so I suspect he can offer much information for you. He and I are in the twin cities metro area. I will see him tonight and finally get a chance to hear these latest changes along with some more listening to the Kubala-Sosna Emotion vs. Purist Dominus cables.

He runs with the Aesthetix Calypso and I have the Callisto Signature. I also have a CAT Ultimate II on loan from a dealer for a month. One thing we have talked about is to borrow a Ref3 and try it in our systems but we have focused a lot of time lately on cables. We and another A'gon member, Artg, stop by at each other's homes regularly toting our gear and cables to compare in all these systems. If you're interested to join in, please let me know.

John

Guidocorona: See, if you came out to Minnesota to personally pick up your prize, you could stop by my home (less than 5 minutes from ARC) and hear it against the Callisto. It would be fun. 8-)

Ginas: The last time I heard CJ gear was in 1995 when I too was preamp shopping; I ended up with the ARC LS5 II but the CJ Premier 10 was also a most impressive piece. I simply prefered the dynamics of the ARC at the time.

When I see JD (Jadem6) I will let him know of this thread and hopefully he too can throw some insight your way as did Bob Wood.

And yes, it would be cool to have another member of our little audio group. See you next year.

John

Guidocorona: We are all very eager to learn how the Ref3 ultimately fits for you. It seems like this wait has been going on for what, 6 months now? Before you rush to bring the CJ home for an audition, I suspect you will be up late many many nights rediscovering your music collection with the Ref3.

I would like to comment on your requirement that the line stage must be a balanced design. I was caught up in this "need" for a long time but I think I ended up with the ARC, then BAT and then Aesthetix products not because they were balanced but because they got me into the music more so than their peers, many of which were not balanced designs. And to be honest with you, I suspect little of it had much to do with their balanced implementation. So far the only balanced product I have heard that severely suffers when NOT run in balanced mode is the Aesthetix Io. Rather than be too focused on what your mind says about what is and what is not balanced, it ultimately comes down to what your heart tells you is more involving.

A 10m RCA-RCA IC from my line stage to the amps works just fine. The CAT amps only have single-ended inputs which initially bothered me, but once I heard music with them, it was a moot issue. And any report that such lengths need to be balanced, at least in the context of my system, is simply not accurate.

John

"I am surprised that you even heard any sound at all."

I'm not. It comes down to how ARC has implmented the SE input signal. As with the LS5 that started it all with ARC, the design here is a truly balanced implementation. Only ARC has since added SE input and output connections. The question is how do they support SE signals:

1) Is the SE input converted to a balanced signal through a phase-splitter circuit which then runs the signal "balanced" from then on; or 2) Does the SE signal simply run through the "+" phase of the balanced design from input to output? My guess is the former as ARC is a big proponent of the balanced topology. In the former case, the SE/Bal switch would do nothing more than "activate" that phase-splitter stage. In the latter case, the SE/Bal switch would simply ground the input of the "-" phase just like an adaptor would do if using an SE source on a balanced-only connection like the LS5. In both cases, there is a signal on the "+" phase as the ARC products are non-inverting.

And then the output: 1) is the SE output simply the "+" phase; or 2) is there an additional stage that brings the two phases together for a SE output? The benefit here is using both phases throughout but at a cost of adding that final stage to produce an SE output.

In any of these cases, with balanced cables, the sound will come through just fine with the "+" phase and the "-" phase possibly having no signal. But this is no different than when I used an adaptor on the LS5 to run a SE power amp; the "-" phase was simply not being used.

Knowing exactly the implementation here would give the user a better idea as to the benefits, or more likely, the losses, of using the SE inputs or outputs vs. the balanced connections for a more "pure" sound.

John

Guido: Thanks for the update. Sounds very much like my scenario 2 on the input except the "-" phase is deactivated rather than simply grounding the input which results in the same .... and scenario 1 on the output. Good to know as both of these are the "purist" approach. Any word on work done here to trickle down to a new LS model?