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#121
12-23-2011, 02:53 AM
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Quote:
Next time, you all should think of a group buy !
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There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats Albert Schweitzer 
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#122
12-23-2011, 01:12 PM
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I'm up to 580 hours and my Ref 40 is still breaking in. Mostly used my tuner as a source. There are long stretches now where music is positively thrilling. I've been going to bed around midnight as I'm listening to everything I can find in my collection. I've never heard anything like this in recent memory (my first SET experience 20 years ago was last I can remember). The most amazing attributes are depth of field/soundstage, texture, solid centered vocals & tonal color. Jazz / pop vocals with individual singers are incredibly alive. You can really pick lower-level sounds and instruments out of the mix and just listen to them alone as in live music even though the rest of the music is going great-guns. From 200-300 hours I had missing bass but it came back at around 400 hours and has great extension and weight - doesn't sound like SS though. Even at current break-in time the sound is occassionally out of focus like binoculars that aren't quite adjusted but then images will migrate back in place over a listening session - early on this same phenomenon was like a phasiness where everything was a jumble. Certain sounds like chimes, bells and triangles have a solidity that I've never ever heard from solid state which emphasizes the leading edge of music - I now know what that comment means. At times, depending on the recording, the soundstage can disolve the walls in my listening room. I've heard sounds from behind the front wall, 3 feet to the outsides of my speakers and the stage depth could be 10 feet or more (my speakers are 5 feet out from the front wall). I also find particularly interesting the central imaging of a single vocalist. Sound comes mainly from between the speakers as if there were a center channel. You hear much much less of the voice directly from the speakers at all on a really well recorded song (J Valin commented on this in TAS and his remarks are spot on). This is all the more impressive as my speakers are Magnepan 3.6s - most flat panel speakers are not great imagers. I'm still not sure I can hear significant differences in inverted polarity but that's probably due to the speakers and I'm not sure whether it would matter. I will say a few recordings do not sound quite right on soundstaging and mix with this preamp as they are not "layered out" well - I liked them before with my previous Pass X0.2 and XP-20 but they don't sound quite right now. Maybe there's still some room for break-in? Will be interesting to hear how much more this pre-amp changes.
Last edited by Barry1; 12-23-2011 at 09:49 PM.
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#124
12-23-2011, 01:42 PM
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Well it's complicated due to all the mods and assortment of equipment, listed elsewhere here somewhere and over on that other website in "All-out-Assault". Player is a Marantz SA-7S1; TT a VPI IV with Triplanar arm and heavily modded Pass X-ono (which I haven't hooked up yet to the ARC). Speakers are triamped Mgggie 3.6s thru a Pass XVR-1,2 with a hybrid NP-220 Counterpoint amp on tweets/mids (a gem -- Mullard 6SL7s, all TX 2575 resistors, CuTF V-caps, 160K uF all BlackGate PS that cost $4K alone for the caps), Pass Aleph 2s on the Maggie bass panels, pair Kingergetic Research tower subs 5 x 10" woofer per side (flat to below 20 Hz) driven by an Adcom 5802, & variety of AZ cables. Never knew what musical bliss was locked inside till the ARC Ref 40 but it's sure singing now!
Last edited by Barry1; 12-23-2011 at 02:06 PM.
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#125
12-23-2011, 02:21 PM
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That's quite a system...
__________________
Lumin P1 streamer/DAC/preamp, Constellation Inspiration integrated TT: Michell Gyro SE MkII, SME V, Koetsu Urushi Vermilion, EAR324. Harbeth 30.2s, REL R-305, Shunyata Alpha V2 ICs, Alpha V2 SPs, Sigma XC, Sigma NRv2, Omega QR-s & Alpha NRv2 PCs, segmented Altaira SG stack w/ Alpha & Omega CGCs, Everest 8000 PD. Remote Server Room: Uptone EtherREGEN, AfterDark Master Clock & LPS, Alita, Battle Angel, (Akasa NUC Roon Core), iFi DC Purifiers (for SMPS used for Alita & router), Shunyata Gemini combo power distributor & Altaira-type CG GP-NR hub, Venom & Alpha CGCs, Shunyata NRv14 power cords for digital components.
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