Considering switching from Audio Research to PrimaLuna, troube with VS115 amp

I think that I maybe thought the test shootout would be last Saturday.  Sorry. 

I want to make points in my very limited humble opinion:

1. To the OP, as someone else seemed to say above, I wouldn't fret this too much.  You bought a quality piece of equipment.  I wonder if the differences between the ARC and Primaluna will be marginal.  We cannot forget to enjoy the music.  I'd ask myself, can I live with what I bought?   And the good news is you can always buy a Primaluna and sell the ARC--or keep the ARC.  I bet it's amazing. 

2.  On Kevin Deal being a used car salesman.  I own a Primaluna HP Integrated.  And, I have had some a need for customer service for two issues.  Kevin Deal was simply amazing.  He called me on nights and weekends.  He followed up immediately each time.  His staff gave him my detailed messages. He understood the messages BEFORE we talked.  He told me, "Dude, I will not leave you hanging here."  Yes, that language is casual and so Southern California--I'm in Chicago.  But it was cool because his casual language meant something more than formal language from other dealers--he stood by his product and was awesome in the process. 

I bought an open box item.  When I had an issue with the remote and mute function on the amp, Kevin worked through it.  When we couldn't get it easily resolved, Kevin shipped me a brand new unit by Fedex 2 day from Cali to Chicago.  He told me not to ship back the original product until I had the replacement up and running.  He said you don't want to be without a stereo during this process.

I was so happy and blown away (because of the service and how great the amp sounded) I offered to pay full price for the new unit, as Kevin had only really offered to sell me an open box one at a discount.  Kevin's response to my offer--"Just enjoy the amp man."  

I don't think Kevin would be as successful as he is if he were a used car salesman.  Kevin needs me to keep coming back to him.  Have we all seen his facility and stock?  He can't keep that facility up by selling snake oil or BS.  Customers are fickle and discriminating.  If Kevin sold me a tube and told me it was better than another tube--yet it was salesy garbage/puffery--he would either need to fool me with bias and BS or I can independently find him to be wrong.  

I don't want to come off like Kevin is the second coming of our savior.  I just want to say that he is a class act businessman.  I buy from him because of his service and fair dealing.

By the way...I do own a Primaluna HP integrated, Manley Chinook, a host of tubes and DH Labs cables, which I bought from Upscale. I am not related to Kevin in any way and have never met the man in person.   

Here's the deal..no pun intended.

This Saturday at 11. I told Bob Levi 10 so need to make sure that works or him. The VSI75 is broken in and near new so the tubes are fresh. It's the latest version with KT150's. I'm most happy to put the tubes on an Amplitrex if anybody asks so there is no question about validity.

The PrimaLuna is a demo $3399 Dialogue Premium with stock EL34's. I could use an HP but the Dialogue will be fine.

Level matched. Double blind too if you can figure a way to do that. I want the change from amp to amp to be instantaneous as the mind is not as sharp as people think. 

Its open to whoever wants to come. Please email me at kevin@upscaleaudio.com with a name and cell number just in case of an emergency. 

The spirit of of this is having fun. I am a fan of all tube gear including ARC and they are a fine company. Particularly the old stuff. I have a collection of tube gear throughout the years including the well regarded D150 and SP10 mkII and SP11mkII. I rebuilt the SP10 which was interesting. When I retire I plan to do nothing but dick around with all the stuff that's accumulated. 

Tablejockey, musicpod and fsonicsmith?

"I had a customer contact me through e-mail named Mark N. Is that one of you?"

Hello Kevin, Mark here. Look forward to 11:00 Saturday.

Wouldn't using KT150's in the PL even things out? 

Ive never used the KT150, but read some users describe its performance as EL34 midrange with low end of the KT88?
If so, then the PL may lack the last bit of oomph?

Perhaps this wouldn't matter depending on music used?
Classical-no
Rock-yes
Jazz-maybe

I'll answer a few folks here:

Tablejocky - No ..we will use EL34's.  That's stock.  Remember that line? "We don't need no stinking KT150's"  We'll play some Stevie Ray and a couple other really well-recorded dynamic pieces.  

jbhiller - Thank-you for the kind words.  The amp was not broken per se.  It was the cable for the volume control came loose in shipping.  We got the amp back and simply plugged it in.  I replaced the amp because when people get new gear....it's a rush.  And far be it for me to be a buzz-kill to that 'rush" as we say in California.  Thank-you for your parience.  

skyhawk51 - Yes you can use the PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium preamp with virtually any amp made. It has a low 256 ohm output impedance.  If you go read my videos on preamps, you'll notice you can make a decent tube preamp for $1500 retail and make money.  It's not tough.  Your preamp is a sum of parts.  Two 6922's per channel, and decent performance no doubt.  Going up will reap some benefits, but not as large as going up in amps.  The DiaLogue Premium preamp will go head to head with $25k preamps, partially due to every bit of the circuit path is done right, meaning:

Dual mono, tube rectification, point to point wiring, big toroid transformers, and details like AC Offset Killer, Takman resistors, Mundorf Mcap Evo SilverGold caps, ect.  It's 53lbs.  

But the other part of that is diminishing returns in preamps.  Have fun with what you have and upgrade the 6922's to something that fine-tunes the color to your liking.  It can be done cheap.  I know that preamp, and you can use Tungsram PCC88's in it and get a nice bump for cheap.  

To UpScaleAudio, Kevin, you read my mind. I was thinking about getting new tubes for the preamp. Since I have new tubes in the amp, I thought I would start fresh with the preamp as well. I don't know how long those preamp tubes have been in there and I wondered what you might recommend. I'll call you tomorrow about it.
One other thing, how does the reference series ARC compare to how PL are built? Do they start to use better volume and selector controls? Tube rectification and other improvements similar to PL? If not, then how do they achieve better sound at that level compared to their intro pieces?