Audio research vs mcintosh...preamp smackdown

[NOLG4EVR]

I can't speak to dac's but for pre-amps the ARC in my opinion are head and shoulders above the McIntosh. I had the 2300 in my system for quite a while and tried the REf5se. Night and day difference. The ARC just did everything better. That being said MC makes wonderful amps and the ARC pre made my MC amp perform much better. Some companies do really good amps, others do really good pre-amps.

[2fastdriving]

Originally Posted by NOLG4EVR

I can't speak to dac's but for pre-amps the ARC in my opinion are head and shoulders above the McIntosh. I had the 2300 in my system for quite a while and tried the REf5se. Night and day difference. The ARC just did everything better. That being said MC makes wonderful amps and the ARC pre made my MC amp perform much better. Some companies do really good amps, others do really good pre-amps.

I'm inclined to agree after a whole weekend. Now the really fun part...I'm borrowing a ref5se for a whole week. They might have to send a swat team to my house to get it back!

But I think it's a combo of pre and dac. I'm not certain what I'll think of the ref5se when I'm feeding it the d100 signal.

I might need to sell my kids and my kidneys and get a dac8 and ref5se. Kidding.

[2fastdriving]

I have the Ref5SE in my home, hooked up to my D100 DAC and MC452 amp. I get it for a whole week

My initial impressions are that it somehow transcends the fact that my DAC is middle of the pack and still manages to pull off a world class presentation. Very impressive unit. Like crazy good. It's a bit frustrating, because over the weekend I discovered that my dac isn't quite as high end as I thought. The basic dac in the ARC DSPre handily crushes it.

Yet here I am, piping that DAC into the Ref5SE and I don't feel like anything is missing. Well, except a phono preamp!

[JBT]

A few years back there was a shootout between the McIntosh C500 preamp vs the newest Audio Research reference preamp. It was either here or over at AK. According to the folks doing the testing the C500 was the clear winner.

[PlanarSpeakerFan]

Originally Posted by 2fastdriving

Hold the presses.

I just hooked this up with my d100 as the dac.

The DSPre dac was making a much greater difference than the preamp section.

So maybe I should be shopping for a dac. I'm no longer impressed with my d100. The arc dac section is far better.

Marc,

I'm thinking the biggest bang for your buck would be upgrading the DAC. I have discovered that the weak link in my current system is the DAC so I'm upgrading to an Esoteric Player. I'll worry about the preamp later. After all, the source determines everything you hear right down the line, so it's best to start there.

Best of luck,
Ken

[2fastdriving]

Originally Posted by PlanarSpeakerFan

Marc, I'm thinking the biggest bang for your buck would be upgrading the DAC. I have discovered that the weak link in my current system is the DAC so I'm upgrading to an Esoteric Player. I'll worry about the preamp later. After all, the source determines everything you hear right down the line, so it's best to start there. Best of luck, Ken

I agree. But the ref5se is so good that it grabs my dac by the throat and forces it to give more than it does with my c2300. Not sure how, but it's impressive. I see some audio research gear in my future. It's insanely good!

[PlanarSpeakerFan]

Originally Posted by 2fastdriving

I agree. But the ref5se is so good that it grabs my dac by the throat and forces it to give more than it does with my c2300. Not sure how, but it's impressive. I see some audio research gear in my future. It's insanely good!

Hi Marc,

The C-2300 is an excellent preamp, not an ARC Ref5se but still great. I think it is a higher end component than the D-100. If you upgrade your DAC now, you'll get a significant improvement in sound and you can always get the ARC Ref5se down the road. The question is which component do you consider to be the weakest link in your system? That's the one you should probably replace first.

Best,
Ken

[Lunchy]

Marc, I've gone down a similar road as you. I once owned a C2300 with MC601s. Now I have other gear which I'm extremely happy with. To put it bluntly, the less McIntosh I've had in my system, the happier I've been with it.

I found the C2300 to hide a lot of detail as I think you're noticing as well. I especially found this to be the case in the bass region. I tried many different tubes in the C2300 and that improved it some, but it could never make me forget about the ARC sound I heard.

The 601s were quite good in my opinion, but I much prefer the Plinius amps I currently have.

As far as looks, yea, McIntosh looks great, but ultimately, in my opinion, those looks are distracting when listening. I often wished I could turn off all of the McGear lights completely. I've gotten past the Mc looks and now prefer to have gear with minimal lighting.

So the end of the matter is this, if it sounds great to you, go for it!

[jdandy]

I'll take my McIntosh C1000C/P preamplifier over an ARC REF-of-the-month preamp any day.

[MyPal]

Originally Posted by jdandy

I'll take my McIntosh C1000C/P preamplifier over an ARC REF-of-the-month any day.

+1. C1000T too.