An addendum to my prior post, where I detailed my decision to stick with a Rogue Ares Magnum vs. the new(ish) VAC Renaissance phono stage. During that initial audition, I was feeding phono stage into a Rogue Hera II line stage, and then into Rogue Apollo amps (i.e. an all Rogue Audio reference system). The Ares & Hera combination, being from the same maker, had a nice tonal balance with a satisfying amount of "grunt" down low. The VAC phono, in place of Ares, seemed to give up some bass impact & extension, which was my main reason for not buying it at that time.
Not long after, I started implementing some significant system upgrades: speakers, power conditioning, rack, turntable. At this point I realized that the Hera's high noise floor was killing me; it was swamping out the blackness that the rest of my gear SHOULD have achieved. So I bought an ARC Ref 6, and boy was it DEAD quiet compared to the Hera! Unfortunately, I lost a lot of the midbass "grunt" and impact down low, with the result being I now had much blacker backgrounds to go with better refinement and transparency, but at the expense of a slightly thinner/harder sound. After some nasty, frustrating back & forth on these line stages, including an attempted sale of the ARC, the Ref 6 finally won out in the end (the ARC remote control was also a HUGE plus there).
So forward a few months, and I decide to give the VAC phono a 2nd try. It's a BIG reversal of the 1st time; now it's the VAC that sounds fuller and has much better bass impact compared to the Ares. The slight background hum from the Ares is gone with the VAC. And midrange magic is off-the-charts good. All I can figure is that the VAC & ARC work great together, and the Rogue & Rogue work great together, but not so much for the other combinations. Looking inside the Ares, I'm wondering if its 0.47uF Mundorf output caps are slightly undersized to work optimally with all preamps. Fortunately, everything seems happy into the Rogue Apollo monoblocks (now "Dark" upgraded).
So now I'm a big believer in the VAC phono stages again (I also loved the built-in phono on a Renaissance III preamp I had years ago). I placed an order for the "Special Edition", which has parts upgrades that should make it a bit more detailed and neutral vs. the unit I'm auditioning. The standard edition seems slightly on the warm side of neutral, but of course it's still lovely.
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