CJ ACT 2 v. VTL 7.5 v. ARC Ref 3

Neal, I have taken delivery of an ARC Ref 3 in January and am absolutely enthrolled by it. My search has lasted about three years, and has included several linestages, including VTL 7.5 and ARC Ref 2 Mk. 2. I did not consider CJ ACT 2 in the end because I wanted to create a fully balanced system. ARC Ref 2 Mk. 2 I could never decide if I liked or not. VTL 7.5 was marvellously musical but a little overly sweet with slightly dampened transients. Please note that my listening experience with VTL 7.5 was in the Summer of 2004. Since then VTL seems to have introduced an update to the 7.5, hence my impressions may no longer be completely uptodate. My search for a linestage picked up in tempo during last summer. I have created a relatively long discussion thread on my experience that contains lots of interesting comments from a number of very excelletnt audiogoners. You will find it at:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1123254379&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona
I'd be glad to add any info you will still need.

Eugene, could you comment on the audible differences between Act 2 and Ref 3, and what where the key factors that made you decide in favor of Ref 3?

Thank you Eugene for your findings!