New Ref5se with green board
 

I received my new Ref5se a couple of days ago, and noticed that they use a green circuit board now, which has a coating over the traces. I believe this helps protect the circuit from dust, moisture, oxidation, and other accidents. Actually the board may be the same color, with only the top coat being green. My previous 5se had the beige board and exposed traces. My Ref75 has the same type of green boards. I am curious if any other new ARC pieces have gone this route? The board components look identical in layout and quality. Yes, it has the white caps!
Also, it is cool that they are doing a minor update like this which makes me think the Ref5se will stick around for a couple more years, hopefully...

Interesting. Mine is a year old, it has a beige board like your last one.

Can I ask what happened to your old Ref 5se?

I sold it, missed it, and got another.

Does your 75 have a green board?

Yep green.

ARC's Galileo line also sports the newer circuit board, no doubt claims of sonic improvement will be made over the older board. However, were I an ARC repair tech, I rather suspect that I would prefer to work with the heavy traces as sported on the latter, particularly on those shaky, Monday morning hang over days!

My 75
Toga

They are still heavy traces. They are just now protected.

Oh no! I have a brown board in my pre, and a green board in my power amp! I'm unbalanced! I better take my pre back :)

toga - you like the ref 75?
which combo you like better? 75 + 40, or mephisto + 40?

For years they used to say the analog PCBs had no soldering mask (the green coating) as it sounded better this way ...

Digital PCBs had the soldering mask, and some products - like the cd7 and 8 for example -.had some parts of the PCB covered (where the digital part was) and some uncovered (analog part). Such a selective coating required more work, so my understanding is it was done on purpose.