Grant, while no piece of equipment will ever satisfy everyone, several of us truly enjoy the Ref 3. The least I can say is that it is certainly worth a thorough audition. . . or should it be an 'auscultation?'
audition |
Jtimothya, what Wittgenstein also said in the first page of the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus is:
"what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.
Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather--not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense."
'tis all really rather confusin'! I do love the Ref 3, but will not comment about Act 2 as I haven't heard it (LW would be proud of me!). I can suggest though, that a fair comparison between the two should involve identical brands/models/lengths of ICs going in/out of the devices, only difference being RCA vs XLR. Furthermore, it is important that the Ref 3 be run in true balance mode, as it can operate also in single ended mode using XLR connectors, though the sound quality is in this submode and in any single ended configuration degraded. |
Oneobgin, what don't you like about the CJ Act 2? |
No flaming from me Downunder. Just a pointer to my summary of the just published TAS review of the ARC Ref 3 at:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1123254379&openfrom&138&4#138 |
I understand perfectly Oneobgin, after all. . . I am 'pregnant with Ref 3' right now! Yet, as I have never heard the CJ ACT 2, I thought of asking you what the ACT 2's particular 'flavor' is, in your view. |
Thank you Agaffer, much appreciated. Your observations confirm my own guess about the sonic signature of the ACT 2. As I said. . . I am 'expecting'. A stork may be finally in the process of leaving the frozen Minnesota tundra with an ARC 3 baby bundled under its beak just for me. In the meantime, there exists a rumour that just before Christmas there was a backlog of more than 30 Ref 3s, and dozens of 'expectant' 'fathers ' are succumbing to the most audiophilic of uncontrollable cravings.
What would OneObGin prescribe to palliate our growing anxiety and discomfort, while we wait for the great bird from the North to land on our roofs and deliver our tubed bundle of joy? |
Oneobgin, I ordered my Ref 3 only in December. I am not surprised you thought I already had one in my system. After all I have been ranting about it since August; heard it in several dealerships; flew out to Aris Audio's open house in Salt Lake just to listen to it again in October; parked myself for ungodly number of hours in Babybear's listening room and listened to it there; finally once brought home Babybear's ref 3 to listen on my system, just to make sure that my infatuation for Ref 3 was not a short term hallucination... finally broke down and ordered in December, once all spousal vetoes were lifted. . . and now. . . I am 'expectant!'
Oh yes I was forgetting. . . went back to Babybear's place for his Christmas party and spent 5 more hours till past 3:00 a.m. in his music room in perfect antisocial rapture. How is that for having audiophilia nervosa? |
Jthimothya, your intriguing words tell me that -- while CJ ACT 2 may not satisfy one of my basic requirements for a fully balanced device -- I should renew my efforts to audition it. Perhaps once my Ref 3 has settled down and is fully broken in, I may contact the local CJ dealer in Austin, and see if he can arrange for a demo at my place for me and my fellow Austin audiofools. The challenge will be to do this while minimizing additional variables, such as ICs changes, that would contaminate the validity of any results. |
John, I have no intention of swapping the ref 3 out for any other linestage for a long long time. And no, it has not been 6 months. My quest for a linestage has started in 2000 and will finally end only in one or two weeks when the creatures is finally delivered to my doorsteps.
Yet, being the old software test engineer that I am, I know it is in my genes to practice at home what I have done at work for many years, hence my interest in evaluating the ACT 2.
Now about balanced: I have Rowland 7M, which according to Jeff Rowland himself respond best balanced. I have also the X-01 player, which best behaves balanced. Why not optimize the system? I tried the Ref 3 both balanced and single ended on my own system with AQ Sky ICs in and out of it. . . and it does sound a great deal better in fully balanced mode.
The truly interest test will be the insertion of a CJ ACT 2 on my own system, using Sky RCA instead of SKY XLR. |
I should add that, when I tried the ARC Ref 3 in single ended mode the test was unplanned. I turned off by mistake the balanced circuit on the remote, and for approx 20 minutes I scratched my head wondering why on earth the system was suddenly sounding so thin. |
Rgurney, yes the ARC REF 3 sounds extremely different if you defeat the balanced circuit while running true XLR ICs. The sound turned all together noisy, hazy, uninvolving and thin. . . all of a sudden it reminded me of my good old LS2B. When the 'accident' took place at Aris Audio in Salt Lake City last October we were running AQ Sky XLR from a Teac X-01 to the Ref 3, and AQ XLR Chita to a Theta Dreadnaught. A single keystroke on the remote returned the ref 3 to its former glory.
Downunder, the VTL 7.5 did not send me in ectstasy either. Very sweet and 'romantic', but transients were a touch too slow. To give you an idea, all grand pianos sounded like old German Bluthners, or as if grandma had thrown her heaviest quilted blanked on top of the closed lid of her prized 7ft Steinway Hamburg. . . and yes, I have played on a Bluthner several times and do not like the brand. Violins sounded also much tamer than in real life. Once again they sounded 'Bluthnerized' .
JTimothya, I will definitely post detailed listening comments when I have the opportunity to compare the ACT 2 with the REF 3, with detailed references to musical passages and performance issues, in the same slightly anally retentive style that I have already used in my analysis of the ref 3 vs VAC Ren Signature II on my thread at:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1123254379&openmine&Guidocorona&4&5&st0
starting approx the 17th of August 2005. If I recall correctly it was approx post No. 50 or so. |
Agaffer, quite possibly. If I have the opportunity to test the X-01 to Ref 3 connection with one set of single ended Sky ICs and compare the result with the same balanced IC, I shall do so. Until such time, I will have to go with what my ears have told me this far. |
Oneobgin, best thing is to try things out. You can likely perform some tests before I do. Please let us know your results. |
Bingo Doc. But it could be even worse than that. . . the button likely shuts off one half of the Ref 3's circuit--that is the signal return path. The 6DB signal drop off is but a sideeffect.
I should like to point out that when the event happened, raising the volume on the remote did not correct the degradation of the signal. Furthermore, I was not alone at the time, several other people, including Aris Audio's Scott haver observed the degradation.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that a sound difference might be detectable only on some totally balanced systems. |
Excellent points John. I will call Leonard at ARC when I have a minute. I will post his answers here. |
Just spoke to leonard at ARC:
Ref 3 is a truly differential design. No splitters/inverters are used to simulate balanced operations. Two 6H30 tubes are used for the positive signal, and two for the return signal. If the Ref 3 is switched to SE operation through the remote control, a relay switch is activate which turns off the return signal on the XLR connectors and takes the 6H30 tubes responsible for the return signal out of the active circuit. Leonard suggests that if single ended operations are desired, the user should employ RCA ICs instead of balanced ones. However, he confirms that turning off the balanced signal on XLR, or using RCA connectors will still result in a 'good' sound with a predictable loss of 6DB of gain. This 'good' sound will however be noisier, slightly flat, and pinched, if compared to the sound of Ref 3 in a fully balanced configuration.
One further note, according to Leonard, the 6550C tube employed on Ref 3 is in fact an original SED Wing 6550 manufactured in the St. Petersburg plant, rather than the lesser pseudo-Svetlana equivalent. |
Please note that in the previous post I should have been more specific: instead of 'sound' I should have specified 'Ref 3 sound signature'. The reason of course is that the actual sound is a function of all components. As such, we can't make a categorical statement about how best to run the Ref 3--single ended or balanced. It will all depend on the rest of the system. |
Yes, I guess it is simple OneObgin. If you run Ref 3 single ended you are utilizing 50% of its output stage. This may not maximize the Ref 3's potential contribution to a system's overall sound, however the rest of a system configuration may very Wele make up for this inherent shortcoming. |
