audio research purchase

Sure…. I am definitely an enabler…

both your 75 and 5 will benefit from HRS Nimbus couplers 3 for the pre and 4x for the amp . I have pretty much entirety of 2 systems all with Nimbus couplers. There are of course other brands. Turntables live on HRS spring platforms and Vortex. There are of course other brands of isolation. I’m sort of opportunistic with picking up Nimbus as best I can used …

@skids 

2019 I bought a very old Vintage Tube Preamp, too old for McIntosh to check on because they no longer stock all the parts for it). Audio Classics, very near them in Vestal works on them.

Lucky me, seller didn’t lie, sounded great. Two years later, I visited a friend in Vestal, dropped it off. They replaced a few resistors and capacitors, one LED, all my tubes tested good.

Next visit to my friend, picked it up. Got it home, sounded the same, maybe younger ears would notice something, but I had more confidence in it of course.

What made me very happy is that they replaced all the old rca jacks with new gold plated RCA jacks. I occassionaly had l/r imbalance and found the signal intergrity of the old worn jacks was inconsistent. I think they were originally slightly undersized, or, cleaning them repeatedly made them a slight smaller diameter. Cables are damn tight now, and I changed all my RCA’s to Locking Connectors, so if I mess with any cable it doesn't disrupt another.

@skids 

That was a great buy and while you passed on this deal, take the next one.  It is a fabulous/end-game preamp.  You can continuously build upon a great preamp.

I will just say that I have a REF 6 and I really like it.  I have the stock Sovtek tubes and a Tung-Sol power tube.  Coupled with a Pass Labs 250.8, I feel like I get the best of both worlds.  And ARC has an excellent track record of supporting their older models so this will last for a long time!

@skids the common trap to pursue better SQ is to upgrade the equipment. It’s a solution, and itch to scratch, that’s easy to reach for.

But the lift you can get from a Ref 5SE to a 6 is minimal compared to other steps you can take. (I have a Ref 10, so it’s not like I don’t know what they can do.)

The biggest, and most likely the least expensive, is 1) proper placement of your speakers (often a $0 investment, only time but take the TIME), 2) room treatments (you can do a lot for $2-4k, which is dwarfed by most any equipment upgrade), and 3) proper subwoofer integration (if you are using a sub or subs, obviously).

Unless you have these three areas optimized, reaching for a marginally better piece of gear is not the best use of your time and money. Yet, many people do it, all the time.

(As for isolation platforms, I would also look at Townshend Seismic Platforms if you think that’s a good way to improve your SQ.)