ARC VTM120 Any thoughts?

Blue book is about $1500 which is $1500 too much. Find a used Sonic Frontiers, Cary, Rogue, Quicksilver, etc. and hear music not a dried out presentation from ARC.

OUCH! Let the ARC bashing begin..... Oh, I guess it already has.

Geez Audiofeil. I don't understand how they could be that bad. Where does their good reputation come from? At least, I perceive them to have a good reputation. Do they do anything well??

I suppose my comments were a bit over the top. Reputations? That's like trusting the media for the news. Don't believe all you read and hear. ARC makes competent equipment and it is well supported at the retail and manufacturer's level. That is undisputable. That being said, however, it is my opinion that your money can be spent more wisely. Hope that helps.

I owned the 120 monoblocks a few years back. I paid about $1650 at the time..which was about book on them. Mine were not the SE version which have upgraded caps. I ran them on ML SL-3's and Von Schweikert VR2 for the time I owned them. Neither speakers sounded their best driven with the VTM-120's. I liked them because they were not bright, but they really didn't have that tube magic I was expecting, and eventually parted with them.

I would have to agree as Audiofeil mentioned..they do tend to sound rather dry, and I feel they lacked conventional tube warmth, although they are not bad sounding.( IMO..ARC has never made a bad sounding amp yet!) They just lacked that emotional connection that I expected from tube amps. :) Ken