Since the early 1970s, the arrival of a new preamplifier from Audio Research has been an occasion for excitement, and sometime early next week I’ll be getting ARC’s latest thinking on a piece of equipment that, almost literally, sets the tone for the rest of a stereo system.
The fully balanced, zero-feedback, Class A triode Audio Research Reference 5 linestage preamplifier—ARC skipped from Ref 3 to Ref 5 because in the Far East, which is an important market for all high-end audio companies, the number 4 is considered to be bad luck—is a completely new design. Owners of Reference 3s are out of luck; there is no upgrade path.
The Ref 5 departs from previous design practice in many ways. For instance, it is the first Reference Series linestage with circuit boards that are laid out horizontally rather than vertically, presumably to shorten signal paths and reduce noise. In addition, power transformers have been moved off the circuit boards and mounted on the sides of the chassis, presumably to better isolate them (and the rest of the circuit) from noise and vibration. Bandwidth, resolution, dynamic range and scale, the level of noise and grain are all said to have been greatly improved, which, given the high quality of the Ref 3, is saying a good deal.
I will, of course, report on this blog (and later on a separate thread) on the sound quality of the Reference 5, though I think I can make an educated guess about how it’s going to perform based on my experience with the Reference 2 phonostage preamplifier (which also incorporates some of the same design changes as the Ref 5, including horizontal layout of its circuit boards).
Here’s the thing. Since its inception, the Audio Research Corporation has had a single goal: to achieve the lifelike bandwidth, resolution, low noise, and transient response of solid-state without giving up the lifelike air, light, bloom, color, texture, imaging, and soundstaging of tubes. With a couple of exceptions, each generation of gear has taken ARC closer to this goal. Sometimes, the progress made has been subtle; sometimes it has been dramatic. Lately, it has been dramatic. If the Reference 2 phonostage is a bellwether, then I expect the Reference 5 linestage to have truly solid-state-like transient response (and not just in the midband but in the bass and treble), truly solid-state-like extension at the frequency extremes (with power and definition at the bottom and on the top that are unparalleled in an ARC tube circuit), markedly improved resolution of inner detail, markedly lower tube noise and grain, perhaps a darker, smoother overall tonal balance (with slightly less of ARC’s signature—and to me, quite appealingly lifelike—overall brightness and lightness and bloom in the upper mids), better dynamic range and scaling on the forte side (with less of the a tube circuit’s gemütlich softening of peaks during big crescendos with big ensembles), and even better imaging and soundstaging with improved focus, separation, and articulation.
We will see, of course. But these are among the things that have been dramatically improved in the Reference 2, and I kinda doubt that ARC would let its linestage lag behind its phonostage.
Stay tuned. I will report on whether the Ref 5 lives up to expectations as soon as I’ve broken it in and begun to listen.
Tags: AUDIO RESEARCH
By Jonathan Valin
I’ve been a creative writer for most of life. Throughout the 80s and 90s, I wrote eleven novels and many stories—some of which were nominated for (and won) prizes, one of which was made into a not-very-good movie by Paramount, and all of which are still available hardbound and via download on Amazon. At the same time I taught creative writing at a couple of universities and worked brief stints in Hollywood. It looked as if teaching and writing more novels, stories, reviews, and scripts was going to be my life. Then HP called me up out of the blue, and everything changed. I’ve told this story several times, but it’s worth repeating because the second half of my life hinged on it. I’d been an audiophile since I was in my mid-teens, and did all the things a young audiophile did back then, buying what I could afford (mainly on the used market), hanging with audiophile friends almost exclusively, and poring over J. Gordon Holt’s Stereophile and Harry Pearson’s Absolute Sound. Come the early 90s, I took a year and a half off from writing my next novel and, music lover that I was, researched and wrote a book (now out of print) about my favorite classical records on the RCA label. Somehow Harry found out about that book (The RCA Bible), got my phone number (which was unlisted, so to this day I don’t know how he unearthed it), and called. Since I’d been reading him since I was a kid, I was shocked. “I feel like I’m talking to God,” I told him. “No,” said he, in that deep rumbling voice of his, “God is talking to you.” I laughed, of course. But in a way it worked out to be true, since from almost that moment forward I’ve devoted my life to writing about audio and music—first for Harry at TAS, then for Fi (the magazine I founded alongside Wayne Garcia), and in the new millennium at TAS again, when HP hired me back after Fi folded. It’s been an odd and, for the most part, serendipitous career, in which things have simply come my way, like Harry’s phone call, without me planning for them. For better and worse I’ve just gone with them on instinct and my talent to spin words, which is as close to being musical as I come.
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