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Stupidgood: Ars Sonum

There are lots of "terms of art" used by audiophools to describe sound and equipment. I propose a new one - stupidgood - a piece of equipment that blows you away, as good as it gets (more or less), and the price or the looks of it makes you incredulous as to how good the equipment is. Of course, I did not come with the term; that would by Bobby P. (Mr. von Merlin) describing the Ars Sonum integrated amplifier. I've had separates from ARC, Joule, LAMM, and CAT, and I can tell you, the Ars Sonum is stupidgood driving Merlin VSM-MXes, which can driven very easily be this little 30 watt gem.
pubul57
bobbyapalkovic
729 posts
 
paul,
i caution you in one respect. although the capacitors are burned in for hundreds of hours before they get mounted on the boards, they have not played any music. secondly, there are so many new parts, power cord and tubes that making any effort to tube roll before you have...500 hours on the unit is imho, fruitless.
the unit gets clearer, more pristine and expansive sounding as it breaks in. the tube you prefer now, to the jj e88cc may be too much or too additive in the long run.
give it a chance to sound as it can and then try rolling a few.
best,
b
pubul57 OP
3,712 posts
 
That makes sense.
pubul57 OP
3,712 posts
 
Sherod, the wife liked it, but she said I better never say it in public.
bhoage
108 posts
 
Just to throw in my two cents. I've been running the Filarmonia with my VSM-MX's, (soon to get the 'e upgrade), for about a year and a half now and it's a brilliant match. It's a really special amp with the Merlin's. Buy one, forget about it and when it shows up it will be like a surprise and you won't agonize over the wait.

Highly recommended and well worth the wait.
tabl10s's avatar
tabl10s
1,008 posts
 
Myself and one other here on A'gon are probably the only two who didn't have to wait since we bought ours slightly used(in my case, 70 hours).
I've stopped agonizing over aquiring the hard-to find Wytech Opal preamp and Brazillian Model 88 mono's that I dreamt about all day and night.
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