Sounds fairly neutral. Never had the pleasure to hear AR speakers though I sold one to a gentleman in japan after saving it from the landfill. What are your impressions regarding passive vs active preamps?
It doesn't need a better power supply. The unit only needs a very small amount of juice for the remote functions and to power the Light Dependent photoRresistors.
Xavier Ancarno one of the great things about Opto couplers, like this passive "amplifier" uses, is that the sound quality are almost 100% independent of the power going in, the quality of the volume control (pot) and about anything else. The only problem that most Opto coupler of the LDR (Light Dependent Resistor) kind have, is that they deviate a hole lot from each other and from the specifications they should have. It means that normally, they can be nearly useless as a volume control. But Lightspeed (the original passive preamplifier) and the Tortuga have found ways to make up for that, so they sound fantastic, despite the LDR's minor problems). EDIT: Sorry was talking out of my a** when I did reply to this tread! It looks like your friend was wary wise, since every LDR demands a perfect power supply, so the LED's do in no way dim or flicker. I had no idea how important the power supply was!! Sorry for my ill informed reply above!
