Quote:
Originally Posted by Harlequin
It sounds as tho the 250se's are doing their 'thang' in your system triode, excellent.
Curiously I have found my pair to sound reasonably Ballanced straight out of the box in comparison with previous ARC amplifiers Viz..Ref150 and GS150 and thus far have exhibited a steady and continues improvment as the hours clock up, as apposed to the usual and expected sonic roller coaster ride as the previous amplifiers burnt in.
I would expect that your consideration of the base registers will improve as the run time hours increase, I would say that whilst the base profile of the 250's will never equate to the Krell profile that you are familiar with, there is IMHO a trade off in that For my part I find base with the ARC's to have a perceivable degree of additional tone and texture over the SS amplifier.
I agree that the quality of the main chassis cover may appear, and feel, a tad underwhelming, Unfortunatly it is in the main an unavoidable nature of that particular style of chassis design. I found the materials used and the design of the newer GS 150 to be an improvment in chassis construction.
Like yourself I have a fond predilection for the robust construction of the buff circuit boards of yore, from a practical perspective the uncovered traces were a breeze to work on in the event of a fault.
Those minor niggles aside, and with the audible preeminent over the visual, the SE upgrades to the 250 watt model are quite Stellar IMHO.
|
Yes, there is more detail in the bass even though it is not as extended and taut as the Krells (and like you say - probably will never be) because of the nature/restrictions of output transformers.
Having said that, last night while listening to the early hours of the morning, there was enough foundation and timbre on one track (Church Organ music) on my Opus 3 compilation record to more than satisfy my requirements.