ARC has posted a rather amusing review of the Ref 3 from Hi-Fi on its site. See:
http://www.audioresearch.com/reviews.html
In it the author criticizes humorously the Ref 3's admittedly somewhat stern elegance, and characterizes its 'English racing green' display as: "truly, hideously, "sphincterclinchingly grotesque".
Assorted humor as well as usual positive and negative hyperbolic commentary aside, the article does contain at least one useful finding: the ref 3 is not likely to come into its own until the 350 hour mark of break in is passed, at least.
The other Ref 3 review downloadable on the same page looked like a pure waste of electrons to me. |
The 350 hour break-in is suspect as well.
Name 1 good reason this should be believed. This thing should sound great after 24 hours of run-in and if not, I would return it. And why is burn-in always good? It can't be by definition but that's all you ever read in reviews.
Please do post your burn-in results though as I would love to hear about them...have a feeling the ARC is going to sound great right away though :) |
Keithr, I'm going to jump in with a comment about my burn-in experience as it relates to a Modwright SWL9.0SE with Blackate cap upgrade. I know the Modwright is not in the rarified air of the preamps being discussed here, but my burn-in observations may be relevant nonetheless.
Dan Wright told me the SWL9.0SE with Blackgate would require 200 hours off burn-in. Nonsense, I thought. After 300 hours, I threw in the towel. Hard, edgy...lacking soundstage breadth and height.
After 400 hours, the darn thing exploded out off it's cocoon. I was stunned. I am a skeptic at heart. You have to show me the results. Should've been born in Missouri.
The burn-in of the Blackgate capacitor is legendary...and true from my experience.
I have no idea how this relates to the ARC, but electronics are electronics, and there has to be a correlation on some level.
Burn-in is real. Moral of the story...don't give up too soon.
|
Keithr, TBG's breakin finding are consistent with my own. As you may have read I have purchased a Teac X-01 last October. Teac America had suggested that the unit would reach optimum performance after c.ca 80 hrs. My experience has been that the unit has lost its last traces of etched sound after 800 hrs, and in my view now close to the 1000 hrs mark it is still developing.
A linestage being a higher current device will probably take a little less, yet I fully expect to have to wait for 500 hrs till the device stabilizes. I will keep everyone posted on this thread. |
The interesting thing about every piece of ARC gear that I have ever owned is that out of the box it sounds absolutely terrific and then after a few hours it becomes very muddy until it has been broken in. I do believe all of my ARC gear (and I have owned a lot of it) always sounded better after extensive break in. |
Thanks Doc, this is very useful. . . I am bracing myself for beuty followed by. . . temporary Mud City! |
Doc and all, I finally received my Ref 3 this very morning. . . and it's already making music. It is connected to my X-01 source via AQ Sky XLR, and the down-range IC leg is temporarily provided by a pair of Gutwire Synchrony XLR. Ref 3 has now been playing for just 5 hrs. . . . seems already some 'whool' has been removed from the speakers; somewhat sweeter, more extended than old LS2B; harmonics ring more distinctly. Only obvious sign of its newness is the apparent lack of sound stage and a very slight hollowness. Quite good this far , if perhaps--just as predicted--not yet overwhelming, but still promising for a brand new unit. Most remarkable today is its ability to 'fill' the house with fine, detailed music even at very moderate levels of gain.
Finally a special thanks to Babybear, who not only took temporary delivery while I was travelling, but also brought it to my place and even helped me to install it this morning. Friends don't come any better than this! |
Guido
Don't be discouraged. The unit will just not sound good until at least 100 hours of use.
The nice feature about the Ref 3 is that you push a button on the remote and it will tell you how many hours on the tubes. |
Thanks Oneobgyn, no I am not discouraged at all. . . right now I am enjoying 'mud city': Ref 3 got a lot worse approx 6 hrs into breakin. . . I know it's temporary. Sorry, the nice "English Racing green' display is lost on me. . . can't see it at all. |
Last Sunday I last turned off the system at approx the 26 hrs break in mark because I had to fly out of town for the week. A very faint amount of sound stage and ambient echo was starting to creep back into the system. I will resume Ref 3 break in late tomorrow night or on Friday. |
No offense guys, but if the ARC sounds muddy after a few hours out of the box, why would ARC sell it that way?
It would make more marketing sense to burn them in for the "muddy" period out of the factory, so all customers get a nice unit with the best sound.
The only thing that is breaking in is you "ears" to the sound of the new piece---now THAT, i believe. |
Keithr: Very good points. |
In my experience it is common for a component to sound pretty good out of the box for the first few hours and then sound bad for quite a while, gradually improving until broken in. Guidocorona's experience demonstrates that, and I don't think it should reflect badly upon the manufacturer, because components are voiced to sound as expected once broken in. It isn't the manufacturer's responsibility to break in the components, which can take weeks. That said, if a customer of mine asks me to break in something he purchases I'll be glad to do it if I can, although I suspect I'm a very small minority of dealers who will.
Brian |
"In my experience it is common for a component to sound pretty good out of the box for the first few hours and then sound bad for quite a while, gradually improving until broken in. Guidocorona's experience demonstrates that, and I don't think it should reflect badly upon the manufacturer, because components are voiced to sound as expected once broken in" Precisely my point. Every Audio Research component that I have ever owned sounded great out of the box and then sounded muddied for the next 100 or so hours when the magic occurred. |
Thank you Brian, you a re clearly a very thoughtful dealer. If I asked my dealer to break in my Ref 3, I am positive he would have done it as well. However I prefer to perform the complete break in myself and hear my system progressively blooming. It is purely a matter of personal preference. . . a little like purchasing bulbs instead of fully bloomed tulips. I guess I am not much into instant gratification. After all, I have been in the market for a new linestage for 5 years until I found what I truly liked. Then I still waited several months before passing an order to purchase. . what's a few weeks of break in for me, compared to all of that? |
My Ref 3 has now racked up approximately 380 hours and is sounding absolutely glorious. Interestingly enough, the sound stage did not come completely into its amazing own until past 360 hours of operation, which means just about one week ago. Prior to that, the device continued to smooth up, open up and become more detailed until approx 340 hours, at which time it decided to become rather unpleasantly edgy on a numbr of redbook CDs. Almost suddenly, past 365 hrs the problem abated, the odd etch in the higher mid treble vanished in about 5 hours of operation, and the stage and imaging bloomed rapidly into a giant, deep and transparent state. Go figure! I am not sure if the unit is completely broken in as yet. I will keep everyone posted on any further changes.
In the meantime, Marc Mickelson has posted a good if slightly technically dated two-part review of the ref 3 on SoundStage. He inaccurately lists one of the tubes in the Ref 3's power supply as the 6L6GC of the first production run, instead of the current 6550C. Please see:
http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/arc_reference3/
and
http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/arc_reference3/index2.html
Makes me wonder if he reviewed a pre or post rolling update unit. Does anyone know? |
As the subscribers to this thread may have read my ramblings about my X-01--albeit willy nilly--and some of my favorite power chords, I thought you'd be interested in a listening comparison of the Shunyata Anaconda Helix VX and Anaconda Helix Alpha power chords on Babybear's X-01 Limited connected to his fab system. I'll see you all on "A Tale Of . . . Two Anacondas" at:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?fcabl&1146623467&openfrom&1&4#1
where you will have the unadulterated displeasure of following all my latest rants. Guido |
Last Monday I had the opportunity of doing a comparative audition at some length of my Ref 3 with a JRDG Capri preamp on my system. My admittedly preliminary findings are intriguing, and can be read at:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1200110667&openfrom&22&4#22
See you there! Guido |
The whole break-in, burn-in period is a matter of confussion for me. It is not that I don't believe that it can logically make sense, but I also do believe it is partially the listener being broken into the sound of the new equipment. More to the point is how can one listen to a higher end piece of equipment at most dealers and declare such a piece so superior. In way too many cases, dealers have equipment for demonstration that is no where close to the completed break-in period - either manufacturer recommended or real.
I base this on the fact that I have purchased several pieces of demo equipment from dealers (all across the country). In virtually every case, the dealer reported and my personal contacting of the manufacturer of the piece with serial number in hand confirmed that each piece ranged in actual age of between 4 - 10 months. In every single case, the selling dealer warned me that the piece had very limited hours and would need virtually the entire break-in period. This means that they were trying to sell rather expensive equipment based on auditions of "not ready for prime time" components based on the recommended break-in periods.
Why wouldn't the manufacturer require dealers to properly break-in their equipment prior to issuing customer auditions - after all listening to a component when it is not broken in should result in a poor audition and turn customers away from the product. |
This means that they were trying to sell rather expensive equipment based on auditions of "not ready for prime time" components based on the recommended break-in periods.
Ckoffend (Threads | Answers) Or, perhaps they were trying to move new equipment by opening the box and declaring it a demo. It's been known to happen. Maybe what you bought was essentially a brand new item offered at a sale price, but one that required working within the manufacturer's or distributor's rules. |
Tvad, I can appreciate what you are stating and it does make sense. While this may certainly be the case, I have also purchased items directly off the floor in person after listening. So yes, probably in some cases, but not all. Regardless, it still seems to me that there are dealers that are demonstrating equipment that certainly is not broken in. |
it still seems to me that there are dealers that are demonstrating equipment that certainly is not broken in.
Ckoffend (Threads | Answers) Yes, probably so. |
Valid point CKoffend. . . the Capri/Ref 3 audition referred/linked above was conducted on my own system. Ref 3 has approx 2400 hrs of operation on it. The Capri was probably not completely broken in with only a few hundred hrs. Yet, preliminary observations were just slightly outside typical expectations of audiophilic orthodoxy.
Concerning auditioning on imperfectly broken in equipment in general, this is a rather weighty topic, which deserve its own dedicated and likely popular discussion thread. . . and you Ckoffend may want to start it ASAP, while leaving this one to the tedium of its admittedly narrowly scoped minutiae. |
All, my latest extremely preliminary Capri vs Ref 3 observations are at:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1205635448&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona
They are in my first post dated 03-28-2008. G. |
If anyone were interested in some of my latest a/b comparison between JRDG Capri and ARC Ref 3, see:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1200110667&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona
Guido |
A couple of questions for ARC Ref3 owners.
First, are you using single ended sources with the preamp's single ended or balanced inputs, and if your answer is balanced have you compared using RCA>XLR adapters versus RCA>XLR interconnects?
Second, do you turn the preamp off or leave it on 24/7? |
I use Balanced interconnects and never leave mine on 24/7 (for no good reason) |
Thanks.
Specifically, I was wondering which inputs are used by owners who own unbalanced (single ended) sources.
Do you use unbalanced sources, Oneobgyn. |
Tvad
If owners have unbalanced SE sources then IMO it only stands to reason that they would use a SE input. To use a SE to XLR adaptor would provide absolutely no sonic benefit and would be a waste of money to buy the adaptors...at least that is how I see it.
I have no unbalanced sources. Having said that I use balanced outputs from my Ref3 to my Lamm ML2.1 (there are both SE and XLR inputs to the Lamm) but the XLR input is pseudobalanced as Vladimir does not believe in true balanced in any of his components |
09-14-08: Oneobgyn
Tvad
If owners have unbalanced SE sources then IMO it only stands to reason that they would use a SE input. To use a SE to XLR adaptor would provide absolutely no sonic benefit...
I recently acquired a used Ref3 and initially connected my single ended sources into the RCA inputs. The Ref3 sounded so bad using the RCA inputs that I nearly put it up for sale the same day I received it. Fortunately, I had some RCA>XLR adapters available so I could try the Ref3's balanced inputs, and this method resulted in substantially better sound. Therefore, I'm now wondering if RCA>XLR interconnect cables provide any benefit over adapters. I suspect the improvement, if any, would be minimal, but I'm not certain. I am running balanced from the Ref3 to Pass Labs monoblocks. |
HI Tvad,
I also own a Ref 3 but have only used the XLR inputs/outputs. I thought I would mention, however, (and you may already realize this) but if you use the RCA inputs, you need to be sure to use the button on the remote control which is marked BAL/SE which toggles the Ref 3 between Balanced and Single Ended operation. If for example, when I use the XLR CD inputs but place the Ref 3 in SE mode, music will still play, but will sound quite bad. I don't know if this is what you are experiencing or not, but I thought it was worth mentioning. |
Babybear, I thanks for the suggestion. I was aware of that. |
Tvad
I am amazed because IMO the Ref3 is the finest preamp out there |
Hi Grant. Do you know if the tubes are fresh? Might be worth while to try all new tubes before letting it go.
Frank |
the tube timer should tell him that (assuming it has or has not ever been reset) |
In my system, the Lamm L2 Reference was clearly better than the Reference 3...better balance, better bass definition, and more life to the music. The ARC sounded veiled in comparison.
Tubes had just over 50 hours. I ran the ARC balanced.
No criticism of the ARC, which is obviously a fine preamplifier. I believe it was just a case of the Lamm having better synergy with the Pass Labs XA-60.5 amps. |
Should have written "tubes had just over 500 hours" in the post above. |
Hi Grant, the relatively higher output impedance of 600Ohms of the Ref 3 compared to the more modest 130 of the Lam may partly explain the higher Lam to Pass synergy. G. |
the relatively higher output impedance of 600Ohms of the Ref 3 compared to the more modest 130 of the Lam may partly explain the higher Lam to Pass synergy. G.
Guidocorona (Threads | Answers) I agree completely. |
I had the same results as Tvad when comparing the L2 to the Ref 3 in my system with all else being equal. Perhaps it was a compatibility issue also as I was using a Lamm amp at the time. I also remembered the Lamm having a lower noise floor with greater dynamics and transparency. |
