Has anyone heard the Ref 3?

I would agree the Ref 3 is significant upgrade to the Ref 2. The Ref 3 is less colored, more transparent and gets out of the way of music more. Owners of the Ref 3 can get another improvement by replacing the stock Svetlana 6550c tube with a NOS Genalex KT88. The difference in terms of tonality, involvement, and imaging were substantial in my system.

KT88s and 6550s are usually compatible in the same circuit. The hiss existed before and after changing tubes. This pre really sounds quite a bit better with the Genalex in my opinion.

Oneobgyn, your poor experience with the L2 was unfortunately my fault. One of the XLRs I brought over and had been using turned out to be faulty causing a significant compromise to the sound. When we listened to your Ref 3, Vahallas were used bypassing this problem. Consequently, I dont think your experience with the L2 was accurate.

A few weeks ago, I had a Ref 3 to compare in my system and to me, the L2 was superior. The Lamm was more natural and transparent with a lower noise floor. I felt like it was more pure while the Ref 3 had a slight agenda. The differences were not drastic, as expected with components at this level, but evident under critical listening.

Hi Oneobgyn, I would be glad to bring over the L2 again. To fair, we should probably use the same cables on both pres this time. By "slight agenda," I meant I noticed some coloration that accounted for the difference.

Well all this is subjective but one test I did was run my Lamm phono stage directly to my Lamm amp to hear what the L2 was doing to the sound. From what I can tell, the L2 was quite neutral.

One XLR was bad causing one channel to be muffled and muted. For a long time, I could not understand why my system imaged poorly. One day I played a mono record and noticed one channel was louder and clearer sounding. After a lengthy troubleshooting process, I discovered it was the bad cable. I dont know if you'll like the L2 more than the Ref 3 but I think you'll have a better impression of it.