Vintage Asylum

Posted by mhardy6647 (A) on October 17, 2015 at 06:58:33

In Reply to: RE: Amp for new AR 3 owner posted by sberger on October 16, 2015 at 22:24:56

YMMV, of course, but I have heard quite a few examples of both (and own an MC2100) on several different flavors of loudspeakers, and I find both of those early ss Mac autoformer-coupled amplifers to be bright, harsh and gritty. To a fault.

I keep the MC2100 because I got it essentially for free (package deal) and it actually has some street value, in case I need to raise a few bucks sometime.

So, here's the thing about the AR-3 (and I have a nice pair of those, too, thanks to one of the local hifi gurus). I like them, nearfield, with low power vacuum tubes (even pp EL84, which is totally wrong for them according to the conventional wisdom of today or when they were new).

But...

If the goal is to hear them and to be impressed, they can do that with lots (lots!) of soiled state power. I once borrowed (for I was considering its purchase) a fairly early Parasound power amp (don't recall the model), ca. 100 wpc, and the AR speakers here were absolutely and unquestionably impressive driven by it.

Just my opinions, of course.


all the best,
mrh