Quote:
Originally Posted by PlanarSpeakerFan
I owned the Ref 10 for two years and did a direct comparison in my listening room between the Ref 6 and the Ref 10. In my opinion, they are not close, the Ref 10 is significantly better in every way, transparency, refinement, ease, dynamics, imaging and bass response.
Ken
|
Ken ... it makes total sense that the Ref 10 is much better than the Ref 6. My dealer here in Dallas does the same thing though ... in fact they say that the Ref 10 is hyper detailed to a fault and the Ref 6 is much better overall. When the Ref 6 first came out and my local dealer had their Audio Research event to launch it ... one of the guys from Audio Research was there and also said the Ref 10 was now basically beaten by the new Ref 6.
Interesting in that when I was auditioning the new Mark Levinson gear last year and talked to Todd E at their office he basically said the same thing about their new 523 being better than the Ref 52. That said when I compared the 52 directly to the 523 like you I found the 2 box preamp was better in every way. Wonder if this is a case of the team that designed these new pieces being so proud of the new product that they aren't really objective any longer? No doubt both the Ref 6 and the 523 represent excellent value even compared to the higher prices siblings but in absolute terms I agree that the higher price siblings are in fact better. Just a theory ...
George