Audio Research LS3 owners....

I had both and the LS3 is miles ahead of the adcom and for the usd price of $500 or so it's hard to beat! When When I bought my LS3 I heard both the balance and single end versions and decided on the single end as there was not much of a difference if any, but again it all depends on your other components. If you go the LS3 route and decide on the LS3B you may want to email ARC and ask if it's balanced from input to output, I don't think it is but I may be wrong. Of all the LS3 I have seen the PC cords are fixed. If your not set on the ARC look at Sonic Frontiers SFL 1 as it's also close to price of a LS3 maybe a hundred dollars more and both are built well. Happy Holidays!

The ARC is in a whole different -- higher -- league than the Adcom GFP 565, which I owned many years ago. Compared to the ARC -- any ARC preamp, really -- the Adcom lacks dynamics and sounds basically broken.

Sorry, it has been a long time and I forgot and made an incorrect statement.

Like Bbaxley2 said, IT'S THE ONE DIRECT INPUT that, to me anyway, sounds a whole lot better than the other inputs.

That's the big complaint that I have about it. I think all of the inputs should be the same, really good, for that price. A pre-amp with only one really good input is limited unless you're just using or are worried about one source.

A friend of mine has the LS3B, which has one balanced input. If you have a source that has a balanced output, I would definitely get the LS3B. To me the balanced input sounds really good, but the unbalanced inputs are just so-so compared to the balanced one.

i have the ls3b and ,the remote was a 500 to 600.00,not many out there with it..the power cord on all ls3 were fixed no iec option ,although i put iec on mine.go to arc web and hit links there is a guy who made up all there stuff it has every thing you need to know..i replaced my adcom for this ls3b and,its alot of preamp compared to the old adcom,the direct mode is great for cd playback..if you can get one in the 500 or so range with bal out get it.you dont have to use bal but if you ever need it hey its there..you can always sale it

I believe the later model LS3 can be had with a remote. The balanced model sounds like it's uneeded for your case. As far as sound quality it may be very close. The ARC I think should be better but that old Adcom was pretty darn good. The service from ARC is excellent and of course build quality is too. I wouldn't worry about whether or not it had a detachable cord or not as I suspect the engineers made sure the wire was more than large enough to handle the little bit of current a preamp may be called on to draw.