Has anyone compared Rogue RP-7 to Cary SLP05 and / or Audio Research Ref 5se?

he does say what tubes. I am on vacation or I would look it up.

Put this in your browser: the perfect sound garrett hongo

To be honest there are some enjoyable chapters sharing his enthusiasm and nearly out of control obsession for audio (I can relate to this). There are also some boring uninteresting recounts of his life and that of his fathers (yawn). Skipping that stuff it can be fun. 

My feeling… just on Audio Research is that the Reference 1 and 2 had some growing pains that finally got purged with the REF 3… since then each model like 3 then 3se… stepped forward with great certainty and has continued to push the envelope ever since. I have owned at least one ARC preamp and/or Phonostage for nearly 40 years… and most recently moved to all ARC REF components… why did I wait? Oh, yes… I couldn’t afford them. Used… highly recommended.

Congratulations! Cary makes amazing products.

However. Stop. Get your unit… broken in…. a couple hundred hours. Then get to know it. Then read tube reviews and see if the description… is that the direction you want to take the sound?

I am reading a book about a guy that really got into audio… he fell in love with tube amps and splurged and bought a good one… Atmosphere. He got some highly touted NOS tubes for it. The amplifier arrived… he did not even try the stock tubes.

He turned it on and a few seconds after turning on and starting the music there was a flash and smoke rises… one channel was dead. He turned it off. Obviously he called the manufacturer, they were nice… recommended he take it to a shop… fortunately it was fixed in a couple weeks… there is a resistor put in to prevent the whole unit from melting down. But no. He researched and found out why those tubes and that amp were a no-no.

@garyalex 

Yep, The Perfect Sound… that is it.