Audio Research REF 6 Preamp

Congrats Darrin. Looking forward to your listening impressions. When are they saying it will start shipping and when are you expected to receive yours (if you know)?
 
cmalak said:
Congrats Darrin. Looking forward to your listening impressions. When are they saying it will start shipping and when are you expected to receive yours (if you know)?
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Shipping in November
 
I have already been told that mine won't ship until January. November and December's production runs have already been sold.
 
Congratulations Darrin and Mark! I think the Ref 6 will be a winner for ARC.
 
Except for cosmetics and ergonomics, is there a good reason why not to put the power supply for a tubed preamp into a separate chassis?
 
BayStBroker said:
Except for cosmetics and ergonomics, is there a good reason why not to put the power supply for a tubed preamp into a separate chassis?
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Ref 10 is a two chassis preamp for ARC (also the Ref 10 phono) but as Mike said, they have opted to go with separate power supply chassis in their top end reference product at their premium price point because of the added cost. McIntosh, VAC, and a few others have similar product lineups with the two chassis (separating clean and dirty boxes) in their premium end preamp products.
 
BayStBroker said:
Except for cosmetics and ergonomics, is there a good reason why not to put the power supply for a tubed preamp into a separate chassis?
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Cost and ergonomics is worse, and then you also have to deal with wiring between the two, which is not trivial. IMO a single larger chassis is better. It's not like the PTs and such can't be isolated within a single chassis if needed.

I did notice the AR Ref 6 has a bunch of big electrolytic caps in there, for the price I'd want a PS that uses film caps.
 
I'm constantly surprised by how little detail super high-end preamplifier manufacturers provide about the volume control that they install. "A new volume control with finer step gradation and higher performance completes the system," is what ARC tells us. This sort of vague description makes a volume control seem like an afterthought. ARC is by no means unique in this regard. But the whole signal goes through the volume control and is constantly regulated by it! By contrast, Robert Koda makes a big deal of his hand-made attenuators.
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Dealer told me my arc ref 6 should arrive end of December.
 
I see specs list a 6550C tube instead of the usual 6550WE. Wonder if that is a typo.
 
Deafone said:
I see specs list a 6550C tube instead of the usual 6550WE. Wonder if that is a typo.
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Deafone ... ARC stopped using SED 6550 "winged C" tubes a while back. The reason is that the original Svetlana factory in St. Petersburg where the SED 6550Cs were made burned down several years ago. Another Russian tube manufacturer took over the name, but the new tubes are not the same quality. For some time, Upscale Audio wouldn't even sell old SED 6550 "winged C" tubes that were floating around the market because of quality issues. That may have changed. You'd have to call Kevin Deal at Upscale to get an update.

In the meantime, ARC moved on to Sovtek, which makes 6550 WE tubes. In fact, ARC sold me two new 6550 WE replacement tubes for my Ref 5 SE linestage and Ref CD-8 CDP.

Hope this helps.

BIF
 
I recently had a long audition of a system that included the ARC Ref 6. The Ref 6 sounded absolutely incredible. One of the best preamps I've ever heard (I've owned the Pass XP-30 and currently own the Soulution 520). The organic presentation, combined with the scale, dynamics, detail and nuance were amazing. In a word, wow!!!

Ken
 
Alpinist said:
I recently had a long audition of a system that included the ARC Ref 6. The Ref 6 sounded absolutely incredible. One of the best preamps I've ever heard (I've owned the Pass XP-30 and currently own the Soulution 520). The organic presentation, combined with the scale, dynamics, detail and nuance were amazing. In a word, wow!!!

Ken
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Are you going to be able to try it in your system? that will be the true test.
 
"Are you going to be able to try it in your system? that will be the true test."

Hi XV-1,

No plans to try one in my system at this time.

Best,
Ken
 
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