This may sound a bit silly but why are so many

Perhaps they are not struck by the beauty of the music

Reference 10 is coming out as a replacement for the ref40.

Sfstereo
Are you serious? Where did you hear that?It would'nt surprize me too much but why not a Ref 80?

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The economy is bad, maybe they need the money.
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Ok its a reference preamp at least that is the label given to it by Audio Research. Doesn't mean that it is leaps and bounds better than what it replaced. Maybe there was no improvement at all and if there was, maybe it was just marginal and resold. A couple of months ago I listened to the new top-of-the-line Reference Audio Research system, connected to Wilson speakers. It had a combined cost of one hundred thousand dollars. I walked away unimpressed and thought what I had at a much lower cost sounded better. Sometimes the law of diminishing returns does apply.