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Audio Research Ref 110

I have 88 hours on my new Ref 110 and it sounds v shrill, with a somewhat thin midrange. I have heard that this unit takes 300 hours to break in. Will this shrillness go away as part of the break in process?
gpgr4blu
mickey_sg's avatar
mickey_sg
21 posts
 
Hi Oregonpapa and Janeb,

I think some wires got crossed here: I am Mickey, and yes, thats my room with the mirrors, but I'm not the original poster, who was complaining about shrillness. Just for the record, my room doesnt sound bright, as you might suppose. The only thing that suffers is depth of image.

Cheers
Mick
janeb
40 posts
 
Mick,
I think I did confuse you with Gpgr4blu,since he doesn't
show us his system. However, i am still amazed that what I and Oregonpapa said about your system doesn't apply!
I can't imagine a worse room for listening to music than a super reflective room that it appears you enjoy.
gpgr4blu OP
1,096 posts
 
As a follow up to anyone reading this thread--after 400 hours on the Ref 110 and 100 hours on a Ref 5 pre, I can only say that these components have broken in beautifully. So much so, that I am now amused by my original post. Transparent, neutral, liquid, dimensional, etc. What remarkable pieces of equipment. Shrillness that was present during break-in has completely vanished. Not as chunky/ palpable as a traditional tube sound, but wow! A true paragon of macro and microdynamics. Tradeoff is not the word. Might try Ref 210s to drive Watt Puppy 7s---not that the 110s are deficient, but more power (current) down below might provide more slam there. They say the Ref 5 can use a few hundred hours of break-in before it is performing to full capability. If that's true, I will be even more thrilled than I am now.
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