Will this be a worthwhile replacement for Ref40 ??
 

Hi,
I think I have owned Ref40 for almost 5 years.
On it's third or fourth sets of 6550C and on second set of 6H30.
And that is the only problem that bothered me. Sound quality of
Ref40 varies with tubes hours, the last few hundreds hours life
degrades sound quality by quite a lot.
I keep thinking about what solid state preamp that have the
sound similar to Ref40. A few came to my mind. What in mind were
ML No.52, Gryphon Pandora, Ayre KXR20,Soulution 725,and Pass XS Pre, Burmester 808-5.
What I need are
1. 2 XLR inputs
2. 1 XLR HT-Pass Thru
3. Should be phase correct.

So Soulution and Burmester were out.

This is what I tried first, Pass XS Pre.

I fed power conditioner Accuphase PS520 with PAD 25th Anniversary PC and KS Elation to pre amps.

What I found were that
1. XS Pre ( unknow usage time ) was very lively and dynamic, bass was terrific. But somehow it sounded so much tight. every sound start and stop
so abruptly and music was not relax. And surprisingly, I found out that
by connecting it directly to the wall socket made it sound much listenable,
now it sounded more opened, relax, still great dynamic macro and micro.
and I start to like it, the improvement was even greater when watching action movies, gun firing sound much more real. The Audio chassis ran very warm, the power supply chassis remained at room temp.
I found out that the software that runs many functions was not great at all, the way HT Bypass engaged and disengaged was not according to user manual. the way volume level responded to remote control command was way too slow.

2. the ARC Ref40, while didn't have such a wide dynamic and bass grip, it somehow made something that was unique and relaxing quality that in unheard of from ss pre amp. it is very competitive musically. without knowing the price of each, by sonic only, one will still
having a hard time making a choice between the two I think.

3. most surprising to me, was the hiss noise out of tweeter of my speaker
was way louder from XS Pre, that was quite a shock to me. I could hear white noise from about 1 meter from tweeter. ARC made it too but vanished by only a foot away. my previous Moon P8 and ML NO.326 while I used Magico Q3 made less noise. I checked it came out of pre amp alone.
not source, not power amp. Anyway, my listening position was much farther away.

4. To solve sonic degradation due to tube aging problem while retain great sound this XS Pre could be it. But it will be a disaster financially to resale Ref40 at half price and add huge amount of money to get new XS Pre. And still, Ref 40 is not available anymore if one day I find out the XS Pre is not "the" one, there is no turning back if I go for it.

Toga


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I changed from Ref 40th to Ref 10. Ref 10 has slightly tighter and faster sound. It would be something in between Ref 40th and Xs Pre, should have the best of both worlds for you.

But what I am avoiding is tubes. I am looking for ss pre that come closest to Ref40. I found out that at 1800 hours of 6550c life, sonic quality degraded and I don't like that. Peak performance moment for 6H30 and 6550c are also overlapped once you replaced ones. But actually I still like Ref40. Don't wanna sell it, but to get XS pre I will need some fund.

Toga

D'agostino?

Toga, personally i would not go to a solid state preamp for the reason you mentioned. I would much rather change tubes more often and live with the sound of a tube preamp instead of getting a solid state sound all the time. Just my two cent. When i had my ref 10, i did notice as well that the 6550 in the power supply degrade the sound quite a bit when it near 2000 hours, but i did not mind changing that tube more often. Last week end while visiting my local dealer he had his ref 10 playing and was clocking 3600 hours with the same 6h30 tube and it sound great! He did change the 6550 every 1500 hours or so...

another vote for d'agostino momentum pre.

Tried them already.

Toga.


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And? I'm surprised you didn't fall in love.

I agree with this 100%. Why continue to look when you already have a REF 40 that you prefer the sound of, over anything else you have heard.

No offence to the d'agostino momentum pre but I am not surprised that they were not preferred over the Ref 40. Personally I have stopped looking at pre amps and decided that there is nothing that matches the signature sound of my Ref 40. The grass is not always greener.........

TOGA - you have an amazing system, sit back and enjoy. JDANDY (Dan) had a very nice thread that explained he did not need to upgrade any more but just enjoy the great system he put together. I see individuals continually upgrade and change out great pieces of equipment and wonder what they are chasing. I have previously stated that I am not confident the Ref 10 was an improvement over the Ref 40 in every way. For me the Ref 40 will be in my system for quite a long time.