2. amps-preamps
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Help with an ARC LS5 MK III

Hi all. I bought a used Audio Research LS5 MkIII to basically see what I was missing if anything. This Model has gotten rave reviews as being very musical and considered to be one of the best preamps that ARC made. This replaced a Sonic Frontiers Line 1 in my system. I've been listening for about 2 hours now and can't help but think that the Line 1 may be the better preamp.

With the Line 1, I have a mix of NOS tubes in there including a pair of Siemens and Ediswan. The sound is very detailed and smooth, but what bothered me has a tendency towards glare on dynamic passages.

I expected the ARC to be more holographic and just overall better, but it sounds like there's just a veil over the system. The soundstage is a little bigger and wider and the glare is almost gone but it's missing the bass slam of the Line 1 and the high end extension. The ARC still has the stock Sovtek 6922's in there but I've read on a few threads that some people prefered these.

I looking for some advice at this point. Is it the tubes, the cables or just me? Here's my associated equipment:

Sonic Frontiers Power 2
Cary CD303/100
Vienna Acoustics Beethovens
Cardas Golden Reference XLR's
and Cardas Neutral Reference Speaker Cables.

Thanks in advance for all the advice. Mike.
michaela

Showing 1 response by tubemiser

tubemiser's avatar
tubemiser
98 posts
 
I have been using AR pre amps for years and have always found that the sovtek tubes are the first to go. ARC and many other manufactures use these tubes for their availablity. My favorite tube for the AR pamps are the German E188CCC.(US 7308) Most US and European Gold Pin tubes will give you more detail and less glare than the Russian and Chinese tubes.

I also use Mk 4 Black Diamond racing cones under my AR preamp and Mk 3 cones under the CD player, you can really fine tune the soundstage with these. Good Luck!
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