Any Comparisons between VTL 7.5 & ARC Ref 3

$150? Wow.

Absolute Sound, Stereophile, etc. sell their blather for a much lower price.

I guess if there's a market for $400 Police tickets some moron will pay $150 for some "audio expert's" musings.

Now Mikey and the crew can raise prices to read their drivel.

I read the first edition of this magazine and IMO was no better than any other mag and in some areas a lot worse.
At least with Stereophile you get JA's test reports.
I auditioned a CJ ACT 1 in my system after reading a review by MC, couldn't agree with the rosey review that he gave it and saved myself alot of money and bought an ARC.
You have got to listen to preamps in your system and decide for yourself if the sound is to your tastes and not those of some pundit.

There is just one BIG question for me: Can you(or even M.Colloms-I respect him very much) really compare ARC REF3 and CJ ACT2 Series 2? One(ARC) is fully balanced design which IMHO sound much better when used in balanced(as intended) mode. In SE mode you loose much of its sound qualities IMO. CJ ACT2 Series 2 is on the other hand SE design and sound very best when used with amps that are not balanced. Try to connect ACT2 to ARC REF110 with adaptors and you will get totally crappy sound-I am speaking here from personal experience...

So, I do not agree at all with M.Colloms that you can compare this two preamps, at least not with the same amp...

On the other hand you can compare VTL TL7.5 MkII with REF3 since both are balanced designes and here you can use the same amp as a reference...

Speaking about Hifi Critic I also like the magazine very much but, I also think that $100 is too much for it. M.Colloms is also biased towards few manufactures, everyone who reads his reviews in last 15 years knows that...

I like Roy Gregory from Hifi+ but, I do not like to quote him despite the fact that some of his reviews are truly excellent(and with few I fully agree which is very rare thing, at least for me)...

My point is that all magazines are not that much important for US-the audiophiles. They are important for the industry... Bad review for some product in major mag can be a kiss of death for that product(or even the manufacturer!)...

Long live the difference in our ears and opinions!

Thanks, Elberoth - perhaps you saw subscription prices for the UK. The HiFi Critic Web site says a 1 year (6 issue) subscription sent to the US is 75 GBP. At present exchange rates that works out to ~$149 USD. I agree that head-to-head comparisons seem to be a thing of the past.

Tim

Scousepasty -> sure you shouldn't buy anything without listening first. But then, you are not able to listen to everything on the market. Good reviews can serve as pre-filters.

Funny thing that you mentioned that you found ARC better than CJ ACT 2. That is EXACTLY what MC did himself in the next issue. So I do not really get your point here.

I do not want to defend MC work. IMO it defends itself and anyone who knows his work back from HiFi News times, knows that. Because even there he was curageous enough to write a bad review of Wilson Audio speakers (himself beeing an owner of X-1 at the time) or Krell (again - Krell KPS20 owner at the time).

Show me a bad review of any big name in JA, MF or ST writing.

BTW -I'm from Poland and I do not know MC personally.