A heavily modified Ref40
 

Yesterday somewhere in Bangkok, I saw A Ref 40 in one shop. I went in to look at it.
It happened to be a very heavily modified unit.
All caps in power supply unit became black Mundorf. All DC cables were Tellurium Q cables, also umbilical cord.
The preamp unit seems to have all new cables inside too, but awaiting for more parts to be installed.

Most of the caps inside are black. The big four white caps remains. The workmanship was great.
DC cables were actually better tidy up than factory job.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photo.

With all those wonderful caps and great workmanship. I really doubt how it will sound like with such mod.
I afraid the sound that ARC have crafted carefully will be totally gone.

Oh I asked, total cost of this operations was about $5,500
But I afraid that after such mod, it will be hard to sell later.

Toga

Resale value will most definitely take a hit.

Absolutely. But owner has Ref10 too, I think this REF40 became his experimental toy,
For fun.

Absolutely crazy. The 40 is magic on its own.

Yes, I would have modded the Ref 10 instead - it is not a limited edition collectible like the Ref 40 is - both preamps are essentially the same internally.

I owned both (Ann 40 for a short while but still has the Ref 10 for more than 2 years) and I confirm that it's different internally.....Anniversary 40 at its best is still a distance away from Ref 10 in term of overall performance, given both connected with my Goldmund 1000+ driving a pair of Alexia. Of course, the latter is still the current product while the Anniversary is considered by some a "collector item"

The tech guy who did the mod told me that he saw 3 different points between 40 and 10.
1. Those 4 caps.
2. Wiring
3. Toroidal transformers on 10 are different.
He said after such heavily mod, this Ref40 pulled ahead.

Toga

It's no longer an audio research a REF 40. No matter how much money you've thrown on the unit. The ARC factory would surely say the same thing .

tdh888

You might want to check this post I made regarding the differences between the 40 and Ref 10. The only differences I can see are the coupling capacitors and the UI logic boards - the PSU and CB are essentially identical - right down to the coupling capacitor outlines.

http://www.audioaficionado.org/audio...tml#post779392

What differences have you seen between them?

The gain sections of these line-stages get their own dedicated R-Core type transformer. R-Cores accommodate proximity to sensitive audio circuits because they tend toward lower mechanical vibration with less magnetic-flux radiation. As we know, different transformers yield different sonic results. Spurious noise feedback into the signal path is avoided by using a second separately circuited R-Core for tube heaters, microprocessor, and other non-audio needs.