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With a typical for me sarcasm and cynicism I look though Paul Bolin’s writing about “new” Audio Research Reference 3 preamp. Bitching about preamps is my specialty for years. It is not that I’m on a market for a preamp but whenever somebody does anything that is “pushy” I would like to learn about it. It would hardly possible to accept from Audio Research anything “pushy” and their “old” Reference 2 Mark II was quite boring preamp. However, since Audio Research did not have exposure in press for quite a while and fifty Audio Research’s dealers desperately needed new taking points to butter up their customers the Audio Research introduced a new model, the one that not updateable and not retrofitable from the older Reference 2. Doing this, all reviewers who have written about the “perfection” of the Reference 2 bring official apologies for mislead the public and the Audio Research Corporation reimburses cost of Reference 2 because as they learn it was not as good as it should.might be…   Yes, it sucks that there is no Lemon Law in audio….

Anyhow, the purpose of this post is not to mock the Audio Research but to point out the foolishness of Paul Bolin, the preamp reviewer. Paul Bolin demonstrated his BS-orientated incompetence by forgetting to conduct a very simple and very objective “bypass test” (that I described above) BEFORE he was composing his typical reviewers empty adjectives. Paul Bolin has Manley Steelhead that has around 150R output impedance. It is near similar to Audio Research’s 600R and it would be very simple for him to learn how much AR Reference 3 interferes with Sound….

Now, I wonder, after reading a review about this $10K preamps: was the “bypass test” not performed in the given case juts because Paul Bolin is juts another spineless “pretty face” among the reviewing Morons or perhaps after conducting the “bypass test” it was too shameful to publish the honest result? This question of mine does not require an answer. By nature of reading a meaningful review a reader should not even ask this question...

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site