Finally, the two cold solder joints in one of my Rowland 7M amplifiers have been fixed. Just a simple 2 minutes soldering job at home, thanks to a kind live phone consult by Jeff himself. Now the system is back purring like a kitten. Great say you, but. . . the problem is that now I have fallen totally prey to Upgraditis Furiosa, the most pernicious and 'wife threatening' form of Audiophilia Nervosa. I listen mostly to classical--lots of chamber, vocal, Early Music, Baroque, Romantic, some large orchestra, lots of cello and other strings--on a system that I have lovingly put together over the last 20 years: EAD T1000, AT&T glass C-core glass wire, EAD D7000 Mk. 3, AudioQuest Quartz RCA, Audio Research LS2B, Gutwire XLR, Jeff Rowland 7M monoblocks, Cardas Golden Ref PCs on 7M, Cardas Golden Ref speakerwires, MagnePan 3A speakers. The sound is sweet, lush, with a large if slightly unfocused soundstage, sometimes slightly veiled, somewhat soft at the bottom, can sound glorious in the midrange, good if not spectacular at the top. Much better at small ensembles than at full orchestra, where the sound stage can collapse and full strings and brass often display signs of brittleness and two-dimensionality. But, so much for self-criticism. Now what to do? I intend to migrate towards a fully balanced system, with redbook and SACD capability and a tube linestage. I will start upgrading at the source and linestage points. The source will be an Esoteric X-01 or an upcoming APL NWO-1. But in this thread I'd like to discuss options for a new linestage. My requirements are an open and detailed, sweet sound, accurate with minimal coloration, with very good but not necessarily overwhelming macro-dynamics, an excellent three-dimensional and accurate soundstage, superior microdynamics and subtle nuance. The linestage must sound great out of the box--after breakin of course: not only after going through many cycles of NOS tubes musical chairs. All of this from a company with a stellar track record and reputation in quality, dependability and pre/post sale support. I listened to the VTL 7.5 and found it to be too soft. The BAT VK51SE sounded too dark. Then I listened at length to the VAC Ren II, which seems to embody all of my requirements. I have not heard the VAC Phi as yet, but it is in the running by inference. Nor I have listened to the ARC Ref 3, although I intend to: Ref 3 is in the running by reputation. Suggestions? Opinions? It's your turn guys and girls!
ARC has posted a rather amusing review of the Ref 3 from Hi-Fi on its site. See: http://www.audioresearch.com/reviews.html In it the author criticizes humorously the Ref 3's admittedly somewhat stern elegance, and characterizes its 'English racing green' display as: "truly, hideously, "sphincterclinchingly grotesque". Assorted humor as well as usual positive and negative hyperbolic commentary aside, the article does contain at least one useful finding: the ref 3 is not likely to come into its own until the 350 hour mark of break in is passed, at least. The other Ref 3 review downloadable on the same page looked like a pure waste of electrons to me.
Name 1 good reason this should be believed. This thing should sound great after 24 hours of run-in and if not, I would return it. And why is burn-in always good? It can't be by definition but that's all you ever read in reviews.
Please do post your burn-in results though as I would love to hear about them...have a feeling the ARC is going to sound great right away though :)
Keithr, TBG's breakin finding are consistent with my own. As you may have read I have purchased a Teac X-01 last October. Teac America had suggested that the unit would reach optimum performance after c.ca 80 hrs. My experience has been that the unit has lost its last traces of etched sound after 800 hrs, and in my view now close to the 1000 hrs mark it is still developing. A linestage being a higher current device will probably take a little less, yet I fully expect to have to wait for 500 hrs till the device stabilizes. I will keep everyone posted on this thread.
The interesting thing about every piece of ARC gear that I have ever owned is that out of the box it sounds absolutely terrific and then after a few hours it becomes very muddy until it has been broken in. I do believe all of my ARC gear (and I have owned a lot of it) always sounded better after extensive break in.
Doc and all, I finally received my Ref 3 this very morning. . . and it's already making music. It is connected to my X-01 source via AQ Sky XLR, and the down-range IC leg is temporarily provided by a pair of Gutwire Synchrony XLR. Ref 3 has now been playing for just 5 hrs. . . . seems already some 'whool' has been removed from the speakers; somewhat sweeter, more extended than old LS2B; harmonics ring more distinctly. Only obvious sign of its newness is the apparent lack of sound stage and a very slight hollowness. Quite good this far , if perhaps--just as predicted--not yet overwhelming, but still promising for a brand new unit. Most remarkable today is its ability to 'fill' the house with fine, detailed music even at very moderate levels of gain. Finally a special thanks to Babybear, who not only took temporary delivery while I was travelling, but also brought it to my place and even helped me to install it this morning. Friends don't come any better than this!
Thanks Oneobgyn, no I am not discouraged at all. . . right now I am enjoying 'mud city': Ref 3 got a lot worse approx 6 hrs into breakin. . . I know it's temporary. Sorry, the nice "English Racing green' display is lost on me. . . can't see it at all.
Last Sunday I last turned off the system at approx the 26 hrs break in mark because I had to fly out of town for the week. A very faint amount of sound stage and ambient echo was starting to creep back into the system. I will resume Ref 3 break in late tomorrow night or on Friday.
In my experience it is common for a component to sound pretty good out of the box for the first few hours and then sound bad for quite a while, gradually improving until broken in. Guidocorona's experience demonstrates that, and I don't think it should reflect badly upon the manufacturer, because components are voiced to sound as expected once broken in. It isn't the manufacturer's responsibility to break in the components, which can take weeks. That said, if a customer of mine asks me to break in something he purchases I'll be glad to do it if I can, although I suspect I'm a very small minority of dealers who will. Brian
"In my experience it is common for a component to sound pretty good out of the box for the first few hours and then sound bad for quite a while, gradually improving until broken in. Guidocorona's experience demonstrates that, and I don't think it should reflect badly upon the manufacturer, because components are voiced to sound as expected once broken in"
Precisely my point. Every Audio Research component that I have ever owned sounded great out of the box and then sounded muddied for the next 100 or so hours when the magic occurred.
Thank you Brian, you a re clearly a very thoughtful dealer. If I asked my dealer to break in my Ref 3, I am positive he would have done it as well. However I prefer to perform the complete break in myself and hear my system progressively blooming. It is purely a matter of personal preference. . . a little like purchasing bulbs instead of fully bloomed tulips. I guess I am not much into instant gratification. After all, I have been in the market for a new linestage for 5 years until I found what I truly liked. Then I still waited several months before passing an order to purchase. . what's a few weeks of break in for me, compared to all of that?
My Ref 3 has now racked up approximately 380 hours and is sounding absolutely glorious. Interestingly enough, the sound stage did not come completely into its amazing own until past 360 hours of operation, which means just about one week ago. Prior to that, the device continued to smooth up, open up and become more detailed until approx 340 hours, at which time it decided to become rather unpleasantly edgy on a numbr of redbook CDs. Almost suddenly, past 365 hrs the problem abated, the odd etch in the higher mid treble vanished in about 5 hours of operation, and the stage and imaging bloomed rapidly into a giant, deep and transparent state. Go figure! I am not sure if the unit is completely broken in as yet. I will keep everyone posted on any further changes.
In the meantime, Marc Mickelson has posted a good if slightly technically dated two-part review of the ref 3 on SoundStage. He inaccurately lists one of the tubes in the Ref 3's power supply as the 6L6GC of the first production run, instead of the current 6550C. Please see: http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/arc_reference3/ and http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/arc_reference3/index2.html Makes me wonder if he reviewed a pre or post rolling update unit. Does anyone know?
As the subscribers to this thread may have read my ramblings about my X-01--albeit willy nilly--and some of my favorite power chords, I thought you'd be interested in a listening comparison of the Shunyata Anaconda Helix VX and Anaconda Helix Alpha power chords on Babybear's X-01 Limited connected to his fab system. I'll see you all on "A Tale Of . . . Two Anacondas" at: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?fcabl&1146623467&openfrom&1&4#1 where you will have the unadulterated displeasure of following all my latest rants. Guido
Last Monday I had the opportunity of doing a comparative audition at some length of my Ref 3 with a JRDG Capri preamp on my system. My admittedly preliminary findings are intriguing, and can be read at: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1200110667&openfrom&22&4#22 See you there! Guido
The whole break-in, burn-in period is a matter of confussion for me. It is not that I don't believe that it can logically make sense, but I also do believe it is partially the listener being broken into the sound of the new equipment. More to the point is how can one listen to a higher end piece of equipment at most dealers and declare such a piece so superior. In way too many cases, dealers have equipment for demonstration that is no where close to the completed break-in period - either manufacturer recommended or real.
I base this on the fact that I have purchased several pieces of demo equipment from dealers (all across the country). In virtually every case, the dealer reported and my personal contacting of the manufacturer of the piece with serial number in hand confirmed that each piece ranged in actual age of between 4 - 10 months. In every single case, the selling dealer warned me that the piece had very limited hours and would need virtually the entire break-in period. This means that they were trying to sell rather expensive equipment based on auditions of "not ready for prime time" components based on the recommended break-in periods.
Why wouldn't the manufacturer require dealers to properly break-in their equipment prior to issuing customer auditions - after all listening to a component when it is not broken in should result in a poor audition and turn customers away from the product.
Tvad, I can appreciate what you are stating and it does make sense. While this may certainly be the case, I have also purchased items directly off the floor in person after listening. So yes, probably in some cases, but not all. Regardless, it still seems to me that there are dealers that are demonstrating equipment that certainly is not broken in.
Valid point CKoffend. . . the Capri/Ref 3 audition referred/linked above was conducted on my own system. Ref 3 has approx 2400 hrs of operation on it. The Capri was probably not completely broken in with only a few hundred hrs. Yet, preliminary observations were just slightly outside typical expectations of audiophilic orthodoxy.
Concerning auditioning on imperfectly broken in equipment in general, this is a rather weighty topic, which deserve its own dedicated and likely popular discussion thread. . . and you Ckoffend may want to start it ASAP, while leaving this one to the tedium of its admittedly narrowly scoped minutiae.
All, my latest extremely preliminary Capri vs Ref 3 observations are at: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1205635448&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona They are in my first post dated 03-28-2008. G.
If anyone were interested in some of my latest a/b comparison between JRDG Capri and ARC Ref 3, see: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1200110667&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona
If owners have unbalanced SE sources then IMO it only stands to reason that they would use a SE input. To use a SE to XLR adaptor would provide absolutely no sonic benefit and would be a waste of money to buy the adaptors...at least that is how I see it.
I have no unbalanced sources. Having said that I use balanced outputs from my Ref3 to my Lamm ML2.1 (there are both SE and XLR inputs to the Lamm) but the XLR input is pseudobalanced as Vladimir does not believe in true balanced in any of his components
I also own a Ref 3 but have only used the XLR inputs/outputs. I thought I would mention, however, (and you may already realize this) but if you use the RCA inputs, you need to be sure to use the button on the remote control which is marked BAL/SE which toggles the Ref 3 between Balanced and Single Ended operation. If for example, when I use the XLR CD inputs but place the Ref 3 in SE mode, music will still play, but will sound quite bad. I don't know if this is what you are experiencing or not, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Hi Grant, the relatively higher output impedance of 600Ohms of the Ref 3 compared to the more modest 130 of the Lam may partly explain the higher Lam to Pass synergy. G.
I had the same results as Tvad when comparing the L2 to the Ref 3 in my system with all else being equal. Perhaps it was a compatibility issue also as I was using a Lamm amp at the time. I also remembered the Lamm having a lower noise floor with greater dynamics and transparency.
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