Going down the tubes

See? That was a long time! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

I was thinking of the 160:

The Ref 160 is also nice, but hard to find discounted. The Anniversary Pre and the 150 SE though are reasonably priced. Imagine Albert would work out a package deal, :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I foresee we’re soon getting a different Windom review from you :wink:

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Ha! Well, that would be interesting.

Yes, the waitlist has been altered for a long time to come…

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Hold on, why didn’t you follow Darren’s advice that you can’t have too much power and get M1200? 120w is for wimps.

ONLY JOKING (just in case). I went to this demo powered by Audio Research, the 75w unit I think with the 6 pre-amp. It was a memorable experience.

The set-up was chosen by Peter Thomas, founder and owner of PMC, pictured, who is also the European distributor of Bryston, whose amps he’s used in his active speakers for 30 years. There are a pair of Bryston mono blocks in the rack. The PMC BB5 SE speakers should carry a health warning. He played a direct cut uncompressed drum solo and the sound was visceral. My dealer also sells them, but I can afford neither the space, the price or the electricity.

Maybe get the M1200 for the summer when the heat becomes too much.

It took a bit longer than planned, however -despite the fact that from noon last night the Netherlands is in total lockdown- my re-tubed and SE-upgraded ARC ref 6 arrived today :sweat_smile:

While awaiting the upgrade i satisfactorily listened with the DSsr directly into the ARC ref 75 SE. No hiss or hum whatsoever, amazing sounds and enough power.

But OMG, cold out of the box it’s immediately clear why this pre was and will remain the heart of my system. Fed by this combo (cabled with Crystal Cable reference diamonds) the ML Spires are really shining & singing again.

Of course I can only give a well-founded opinion on the upgrade itself after a couple of hundred hours burn-in, so to be continued :musical_score:

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Beautiful preamp! I’d love to hear how it sounds.

While folks are on the topic, I do have an ARC Reference 150 SE that I will be listing on USAM and Audiogon in a few weeks (these things typically fly during tax return season) but might as well see if folks here are interested. It’s in near perfect shape with just over 800 hours on the tubes. I’ll be looking to sell it for $6K shipped, so PM me if you have any interest.

Over 300 hours on the SE-upgraded Ref 6 so about time to give a small insight in my experience. Happy with the ARC Ref 6, imho one of the best still ‘somewhat affordable’ pre-amps, i initially was in doubt whether upgrade to SE would be worthwhile.

Just to be absolutely clear right away: glad i took the plunge!

At times the first couple of hundreds hours felt like a rollercoaster but in the meantime all settled down nicely. Without going into too much detail and superlatives: highly insightful, more ease, smooth, speed, unforced pronounced bass. On every spectrum the Ref 6 transformed to just another beast, this amp brings out the best in my system :yum:

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Quick quick question for the OP (Ronald Wanders). I’ve read the 10moons project article as well as your write up. I’m wondering if you did pretty much the same thing as he did.

In his article it looked like he replaced 4 of the capacitors on the top of the board and removed all the rest near the tubes (the 5uf and .01uf caps). With your final picture it looked like you removed all of the 5uf and .01uf caps and replaced 8 on the bottom. Is that correct? How would you describe the final sound of the preamp vs what you began with? I’m kind of one of the type in the camp of people who thinks the LS22 is kind of bright. Did the mod tame any of this?