I have recounted my thoughts on such a pairing before, I am not a fan of mixing and matching because of my experience. I paired a Ref5SE with an MC452 many years ago and concluded that I would like to go all ARC because it just didn't mate well. It was somewhat bright but uninvolving. Many years later, I tried the Luxman M-900u with my Ref6SE and decided that it was a similar situation and went back to full ARC.
I've said this many times: You can look at the input impedance specs and hope for a good match, but it's not always going to work out. For this reason, I've become a big believer in using the same brand pre/power amps. At least you KNOW it will always work together and the components will complement each other.
|