My new Reference 250SEs and Reference 5SE

[triode12]

Delivered this morning at 7.30am (Sydney Time) but I have just had the time to sit down to have a good listen. The 250s were dealer demos and upgraded to SE. They have the latest Hybrid caps with the alignment mark and no bypass cap. The Ref 5SE is brand new.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...t=folder%2cjpg

[rscotth]

Nice pics.

[triode12]

Originally Posted by rscotth

Nice pics.

Opps - I've uploaded some external pics.

[Harlequin]

Nice, Initial impressions ?

[triode12]

Originally Posted by Harlequin

Nice, Initial impressions ?

Very transparent sounding and imaging is 3D and rock solid, hearing more detail in the records I am playing. The sound stage has widened a bit. Depth is about the same as when I had my old Krell KSA80Bs driving my Apogee Duetta Sigs. No glare or glassiness in the presentation even on startup unlike my Krells which needed an hour or so to settle down.

Bass isn't as tight as when they were being driven by my Krells, I'm hoping that this will improve as it breaks in.

The only problem I have had is that they keep tripping my circuit breaker. I will need to install dedicated 20 amp circuits for them.

Build quality of the Chassis isn't as good as I would expect of a High End component (esp compared to my 27 year old Krells)- the chassis cover is rather thin and flimsy pressed aluminium. But the sound and performance more than makes up for this. The green boards in my Ref 5SEs compared to the tan coloured ones in the Ref250 are a bit thinner thickness wise. It flexes a lot when I was installing the tubes into it. Have to be more careful as bend a lot compared to the tan coloured boards.

[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.

[triode12]

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.