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Audio Research Ref 110 break in period

Fellow owners with first hand knowledge, please let me know what your experience was with the break in period. I understand ARC says it can last 600 hours, but I think that more applies to the brand new stuff with Teflon caps (Anniversary Preamp and Ref 5) though I could be wrong... What stages did you hear and at what points? I am very pleased with mine so far and it only has 60 hours under its belt so far. Curious as to what else I can expect from it.
bavarian05
hifigeek1
770 posts
 
I've never heard of an ARC amp that does not have the teflons take 600hrs. to break in. I would say a maximum of 1-200 hrs. should be sufficient. That being said, if it does change after that period would love to hear about your confirming what Ff116 found. I'm wondering if it's the KT-120's that's taking the increased break in period?
ojdeteos
26 posts
 
the sound will go down below the line at 100h+ but it'll get better at 200h+ i don't mean that it will go that bad but a bit unstable.
at least that's what happened with my REF150
bavarian05 OP
65 posts
 
Nice amp! Thank you for the feedback.

Did you upgrade from a Ref 110? If so, I would love to hear the improvements you have found over the Ref 110. So far with my Ref 110, I cannot imagine a better tube amplifier, but I know the huge increase in power supply caps and new teflon output coupling caps have to make a very nice upgrade on the Ref 150. I am going to have my LS17 preamp upgraded to the new SE version by ARC in a couple of weeks and am looking forward to hearing the new Teflon caps... According to ARC there are deeper, richer tonal shadings and even less "grain" overall - not that I have been able to detect any apparent grain now. Guilding the lilly...
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