Preview of ARC's Ref 250 monoblocks from The Audio Beat...

[Ritmo]

New Guy,

Please keep us posted as the amps break in. I have Salon 2s as well and have been considering upgrading my amp - currently the ARC DS450.

Thanks,
Mike

[Hps]

Anybody tried the REF 250's with SF Strads? I wonder how they match...

[Dafos]

I usd to drive my strads with the ref 110 with great results. As a current user of the ref 250, I can only imagine how the ref's can take the strads already exalted performance to another level.

[New guy]

Originally Posted by Ritmo

New Guy,

Please keep us posted as the amps break in. I have Salon 2s as well and have been considering upgrading my amp - currently the ARC DS450.

Thanks,
Mike

Mike,

The Ref250s have almost 100 hours on them , still far from being broken in. Initially I was kind of dissapointed with the amps, they sound congested and didn't sound good at all. These are my first tube amps so I was beginning to think I made a huge mistake buying tube amps. I bought these without seeing or demoing them.

After about 50 hours or so they started to open up a bit and and the low end started coming alive. One of my biggest concern was that it might not have enough power to drive the Salon 2 but it does.

I know that TOGA demoed the REF 250 with the Salon 2 and felt that it lacked dynamics and low end and I agree to some extend. The Ref 250 does not have the low end or dynamics of a Krell Evolution amp but the REF250 does so many things right - better vocal, soundstage, details, more air and decay.

The Ref 250 still have a way to go but I am willing to give up a bit of low end and dynamics for the all the positive attributes of the ref250s.

[Marck1973]

Out of curiosity has anyone done a comparison between the 150 and 250?

In a lot of ways the 110 was actually better than the 210's.

Thanks
Marc.

[Ritmo]

Thanks New guy! Glad the Ref 250s are opening up. Let's see where they are at 200!

Happy listening!

Mike

[Dafos]

I agree with the sound of the new out of the box ref amps. Quite dark and tubey, but at around 70 hours they open up quite a bit.

[TOGA]

Till this day, I am still missing that lovely midrange or vocal produced by Ref 250, especially when they drove the Revel. I think Revel like large cross section speaker cables, and high damping factor amps. What we could do to improved bass performance of Ref 250 driving Salon2 is to use some accessories. Large speaker cables,large jumpers, AC wall outlet that make strong and tight bass, may be Hubbell hospital grade, or Wattgate 381 Gold, Ac cables and feed source, pre amp, power amps. These all proved effective at making my Salon2 bass more robust and tight. must be careful not to use those too much to destroy tonal balance and nuance of the system, but they'll help I am sure.

Transparent AC cord like Powerlink MM2 make very good bass, but the standard connectors can make some harsh sound. better connectors will make smoother sound at a cost of absolute power and punch. Good AC conditioner like my RSA Maxim also improves bass a lot.

I think this bass problem has nothing to do with Ref250, but the Salon2 themself, they're so demanding.

Enjoy Ref 250, I am now in search of high power SS amp that have the sound of Ref250 and the punch and speed of Moon. Could be a forever search.

[Dafos]

New guy, were you able to directly compare the krell evolution amps to the ref 250 in your system? What amps were you using prior to the ref 250?

[New guy]

Dafos,

I currently have a pair of Krell FPB 450 MCX mono blocks and an Evolution 403E. I compared the REF 250s to the 403E and 450 MCX. The 403E is much better than the 450MCX. The 403E is closer to the REF250.