ARC System 2.5 Upgrade—is it Worth it?

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Rick Cornish
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ARC System 2.5 Upgrade—is it Worth it?

Post by Rick Cornish »

Hi gang.....
Just wondering if anyone here who has owned ARC System 2 has done the upgrade to v2.5, and—if so—was it worth it? I use ARC a lot when I’m mixing and am debating the $70 cost for the new mic.

Thanks!


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Rick Cornish

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terrybritton
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Re: ARC System 2.5 Upgrade—is it Worth it?

Post by terrybritton »

My rep at Sweetwater told me not to bother with it. ARC2 works the same - all you get is the different mic that accomplishes the same result.

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Re: ARC System 2.5 Upgrade—is it Worth it?

Post by mhschmieder »

Sound-On-Sound seemed to draw a similar conclusion.

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Re: ARC System 2.5 Upgrade—is it Worth it?

Post by Michael Canavan »

The new mic isn't necessarily designed to give better results, it's supposed to give better results over time, i.e. it doesn't get affected by humidity and temperature differences. My studio is in my basement, it's going to have some fluctuations for sure, so to me it was worth it to upgrade knowing that the mic will give similar results years from now. I suppose if you live in a warm dry climate like California it might not be that big of a deal, but I'm in the NW where we mossy people live. :lol:

I already have a reference mic with a calibration profile for Room EQ Wizard, I got before ARC, so I have the two fold advantage there in that the old mic is the exact same kind, a small diaphragm stereo pair for recording etc.
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Rick Cornish
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Re: ARC System 2.5 Upgrade—is it Worth it?

Post by Rick Cornish »

Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. I can always count on my mates at MOTUnation for solid input...
terrybritton wrote:My rep at Sweetwater told me not to bother with it. ARC2 works the same - all you get is the different mic that accomplishes the same result.
mhschmieder wrote:Sound-On-Sound seemed to draw a similar conclusion.
With this, I was encouraged to spring for the January 2018 edition of SOS, to read the full review of ARC 2.5. SOS has always liked the product, and the 2.5 review concludes....
If you already use ARC 2.x and are happy with your results, version 2.5 may not blow you away, but it could provide somewhat better results; the software update is free and the MEMS mic is very reasonable.
Where I live, the difference in humidity and temp between summer and winter is significant enough that (as Michael suggests) it might be time to break out those JAM points.
Rick Cornish

DP 11 on M2 Mac Studio (64mB mem. + 2tB int. SSD + two 2tB ext. SSDs, and Mac OS Sonoma). VIs from MOTU, Spectrasonics, NI, UVI, 8dio, Soniccouture, East West, Spitfire, Heavyocity, Vir2, and more; plus Waves 14, Brainworx, iZotope, Wavesfactory, Oeksound, Final Mix, JST, SPL, PSP, UVI, Valhalla DSP, and other FX plugs, Roland A-88, Apogee Quartet, iCON Platform Nano, Genelec 1032a and Westlake BBSM4 monitors, Gibson HR Fusion III. rickcornish.net
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