Audio Research Corporation has announced their most ambitious preamplifier ever, the Anniversary Edition Reference Preamplifier ($24,995), to commemorate the company’s 40th anniversary. According to managing director of sales, Dave Gordon, it will be available for only one year. Gordon states, “With twice the power supply energy storage compared to previous Reference preamps and using truly separate signal paths for each channel, the Anniversary Edition could not be contained in a single chassis, and thus has a separate power supply and audio sections. The dual-mono power supply has separate low- and high-voltage transformers for each channel, separate vacuum-tube regulation (6550C and 6H30) of each channel, and tremendous energy storage for each channel, insuring unrivalled dynamic headroom. . . . The audio circuit is what you would expect from Audio Research: all-tube, pure class-A triode, with zero feedback. For the first time, the audio gain circuit is dual-mono and uses eight 6H30 triodes, four in each channel.” Parts quality appears to be extremely high, including “. . . four custom Teflon coupling capacitors, each weighing more than two pounds.”