Mark Levinson 32 or Audio Research Reference 3

I own a Levinson No. 32 preamp (includes phonostage cards). It is currently a back up unit (my primary unit is an Emotive Audio Epifania with remote control). I really like its flexibility and incredibly useful remotely controlled features. As far as the sound, frankly, there is something missing. Yes, it is a pleasant sounding unit and does not do serious damage to the sound (the same cannot be said of the pre-Reference 3 AR linestages which sound extremely bleached and unpleasant to me). However, the No. 32 is a touch too "polite" sounding to me and slightly less lively sounding than the better tube units.

I've only briefly heard the Ref. 3 and Ref. 5, so I don't know their full capability, but, I do know they are substantially better sounding, to me anyway, than prior AR gear.

If you can do without remote control, the Audionote (uk), Kondo, and Shindo stuff should be auditioned. These tend to be on the warmer side of neutral, but, don't suffer from being sluggish sounding as a result.

I only briefy heard the Veloce (battery powered tube linestage) at an audio show, but, what I heard was enough to make me at least think about it as a possible purchase (it is remotely controlled, a must for me).

Trance,

As I mentioned above, I own a Ref. No. 32, though I don't think it delivers "ultimate" performance. It is, quite decent sounding, and my observation of its sonic merits come from listening to it in a system that does not have other Levinson components. As a general observation, manufacturers design their products to work well together, so a Reference No. 32 in a system with Levinson amplifiers will probably work better than the Levinson works in my system.

I have had the opportunity to try different combinations of gear. One of the things I've noticed is that the combination of a tube linestage with solid state amplifiers tends to be the most unpredictable of combinations. I know there are a lot of people who think that one can get the best of both worlds this way, but, often I find otherwise. It is just hard to predict the final outcome. Yes, I've heard such combinations work well (e.g., Veloce linestage into the incredibly expensive Soulution amps), I am just saying the result is unpredictable.

As Raquel mentioned above, there are also practical issues with mixing the two. I don't like to keep tube gear on all the time. On the other hand, I think solid state amps take forever to warm up and are best left on all the time. Unless you can effectively mute either the amp or linestage, you would have an issue with turn-on/turn-off noise if you were to turn off the linestage while keeping the amp fired up.