How's the Audio Research Ref Phono 2 Working Out?

I've had the Ref 2 phono for 9 months and I am very happy. Quiet, big wide deep sound stage.

I had moved from an Ayre P5x to an Einstein balanced Turntables Choice to the Ref 2 phono. All are fully balanced. The Arye is a great value but the Einstein clearly had more detail as one would hope for the price difference. The Ref 2 phono has even more detail and a slightly better sound stage vs the excellent Einstein.

Add in two inputs, remote control of loading ect. and the Ref 2 is a winner for me.

BTW, before the Ref 2 phono purchase, I was gathering info on the Atmosphere and Doshi offerings.

Also keep in mind that the ARC house sound works very well with the Vandersteens that I have.

Terry

Stickman, I am happy with the bass performance. But as you know nothing is perfect, even at this price point and I think well beyond.

I run it balanced and I am confident that using the single ended outputs would degrade performance vs balanced.

The change I made 9 months ago included the Ref5 pre and I thought the combination of the Ref5/Ref2 phono was a little better in the bass overall than the Ref3/Einstein balanced phono. My impression was that the Einstein bass performance was solid but I never thought it was an over achiever that way either.

I hope to try another cartdrige sometime this fall. I would find it interesting to learn of TT/arm/cart combinations that others like with the Ref 2 phono.

But for me, I have stopped looking at phonostages.

Terry