ARC Ref75 SE meter light flickering, ack

Thanks to all of you for sharing your experiences. This thread will make sure I actually follow up soon, hopefully today, by calling Kal and starting the process. I spoke with him before on a different matter, about the phono stage in the SP20, and he is incredibly generous with his time. 

Once things are underway, I'll update again. Hopefully I won't be too long without the amp.

I THINK ARC charged 2 hours of labor.   ARC service is 2nd to none!

Oh, i thought that ARC charged $500 for their servicing fee, which would be outrageous.  Something like that would irritate me too.  I never had any issues with ARC service so far and never would send it to a non-authorized facility.

Keep us posted on your situation- amaglioc.

$500 to fix a light??

Come to think of it, probably ~$600 if include local tech $200  ... $100 for commute to my home and $100 for the service.  $250 for shipping ... try not to think much about it.

It's a bias led attached to a wire that's soldered to a board at the bottom of the chassis.   There are boards, capacitors ... above that should be removed before repair.   Since it was new, I didn't want to DIY.   The led still works but just not perfect so purely cosmetic.   I'm anal with my toys so had to get it fixed properly.   A costly brain fart stupid mistake!

I bet if I was armed with an engineering and physics degree this wouldn't happen.   Going to checkout University of Phoenix fall semester classes now.    If Bernie wins, it will be FREE!!!

$500 to fix a light??

I have the REF-75 se ... and run it with the lights off. Sounds better that way. Same for all of the display lights in all of my ARC gear.    

Do you have a local tech that you trust? If so, it would probably be a lot easier and cheaper than sending it back to ARC just for an LED replacement. 

I had to ship one of my Ref250 mono to ARC for a stupid led that I broke installing the handles with only 200 hours.   I think it cost me $500 including round trip shipping.   Amp works fine but knowing a led is out just too annoying.

My advice is also call Kal and always use a certified ARC repair service.   The local ARC dealer that tried to fix my amp is NOT a certified repair service according to Kal after the damage was done. Not all ARC dealers are certified repair services.

IMO, the correct course of action is to call to Kalvin Dahl at ARC.  Not sure what the problem is.  It  may be that Kal can send out a new part and a local ARC authorized tech can fix it.  The advantage of course is that it may save time.  Is the amp still under warranty??? In anycase, call Kal.