ARC Ref 5se inferior to LS28?

Bdp24, it looks like what you are saying is ARC is finally getting as good as they were when they started.

I don't understand how ARC keeps improving their models so often. You would think a model from a few years ago would sound like crap comparatively. But the old models all were the best at one time according to the reviewers. Sounds like a lot of B.S. to me.

It seems to me if ARCs engineers are so good they would have built the newest model first. But I suppose their marketing dept. is even better.

Of the SP-2C, J. Gordon Holt wrote in Summer 1971 (Vol.3 No.1), Unquestionably the finest-sounding preamplifier we have tested to date, this [high-priced ($550) and all-tubed preamp] is the next best thing to the ideal "straight wire with gain." Sound is extremely lucid and detailed, but without a trace of the hardness or graininess that characterizes most other preamps. Control and switching facilities less versatile than on some competitively priced preamps. Phono equalization accurate to within 0.5dB.
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-research-sp-3-preamplifier#yI3g2fujy4UfJbk4.99

If you were to compare the early model to the current version, by ARCs logic, it would sound terrible. But that is not the case according to more recent reviews.
 http://www.tonepublications.com/old-school/audio-research-sp-3-preamplifier/