About 2-3 years ago, when Steve was still living in Danville, CA, he took me by Mike Grellman's house who had both the CAT reference amps and the ARC 610T's in his listening room. For those of you who don't know Mike,, he is as discerning a listener as they come. His rig was a Rockport Sirius with an all Aesthetic tube front end and large Rockport speakers (not sure of the model). He had the luxury of being able to use either amp as both of them were there long term. He was kind enough to switch to the ARC for me so I could hear the comparison. After a few hours of listening, the differences were obvious. But in the end, there was no wrong or right, just personal preference. Mike preferred the CAT because he liked the "density" of tone color. I had a slight preference for the ARC because of what I thought was slightly better spatial resolution with a more expansive sound stage. The point here is that this just proves yet again, the old adage about stereo systems as well as ice cream as taught to me by my old mentor Paul Heath: "There's chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice".
I agree with you that it's all about taste. Personally, it makes no difference to me what gear people like, what they like to eat, what colors they prefer, or what positions they prefer during "intimate relations". Watching the Alexia vs. S5 thread get shut down is such a shame, as most members here are very intelligent, yet arguing about their preferences or that their brand is superior without any proof is almost medieval.
Yet the CAT vs. Audio Research is interesting to look at from a marketing perspective. As soon as Audio Research releases a product, they quickly send it off to Valin, whom any other excellent tube manufacturer avoid like the plague, Kessler,the American reviewer writing for British magazines, who always reviews Wilson and Martin Logan products telling us they are the greatest on earth, and a few others influencers who go on to praise it endlessly. However, when CAT releases a new product, it's ignored. Furthermore, there are almost no places to audition CAT.
As a student of human behavior, I wonder how many of those Audio Research devotees would stick with the brand if other excellent tube brands were easy to audition and got a fraction of the hype Audio Research does. If CAT had a reviewer or 2 even with a fraction of Fremer's reputation have it in their system, there would be a dent in ARC's sales.
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