McIntosh C1000 tube pre vs. ARC Ref 3?


Has anybody heard these against each other? Both are very well received by the audio press.
gpgr4blu
aball

The 220 replaced a Rowland Synergy 2i. Also very good but the C220 clearly better.
Well as other people said it makes no sense to discuss about the differences if you did not hear them next to each other. I had the Ref3 in my system and also had the Mac C2200. In my systen the C2200 sounded much better than the Ref3. So I guess if the C1000 is better than the Ref3 it will sound better also.

However in my friends place the Ref3 played much better. I all comes down to system matching and integration.

Peter
Hi Peter, could you give us some more detailed comparative findings? Unfortunately the terms 'better/worse' mean different things to different people. Please let us know how the two unit differed in several areas, and what made you prefer one unit over the other.
Which one do you think is a better match in my system, the C500T combo or the ARC 3? My system is Esoteric K01 - preamp TBD (currently my friend's Jeff Rowland Capri) - Mcintosh MC 602 - Dynaudio C4.