Audio Research Classic 150

Please do a search on these amps here in the forums. I have written much about these amps after owning them for over a year. And hopefully others have as well.

The CL150's were so highly praised in their time (1989) and to be honest, I just don't get it. The Counterpoint NPS series amps are one example of an amp that just walks all over these behemoths at less than half the price on today's used market.

If you want the rich dimensionality so often brought on by tube amps, it's not here. If you want great amounts of power reserve for tough speaker loads like Magnepans, it's not here. The 150w rating here is very misleading compared to other amps I have owned at similar or even less power output..... 150w does not always equal 150w. If you want a natural non-fatiguing presentation which is tonally coherent through the frequency range, again, it's not here. Sad to say: I never could identify a single attribute of this amp that outperformed the competition for much less cost. Enough said on this.

Perhaps someone else here has a completely different experience with these amps. I am not here to bash ARC amps as I had the 110wpc VT130 and this was so incredibly musical; I often wish I had kept this. I just feel the Classic series and the V70/140 that followed it to just be too analytical sounding to my tastes.

John

Facinating! Thank you very much. I never would have guessed...Not to put you on the spot but, I was going to trade a pair of Cary SLM-100s. NOT, an upgrade right (If, you know)? Either way, thanx for your response. BTW, I searched the forums here but didn't turn up much. Maybe my search parameters were the problem. Hmm.

I have,and have owned many ARC products.The Classic 150's I owned some time ago.I drove my Avalons with them,and thought the sound was fine!The MAJOR problem I had was that they kept,literally,blowing up.The tubes would go,and take a resistor with it.I had plenty of tube experience,but this was too much.I sold them,and have never looked back.I must say that as these were very pricey amps,it left a bad taste for ARC tube amps,though I'm sure the others in the line are fine.Only I,myself am a bit gun shy as of now!

im currently using a cl 150 and im quite happy w/ the performance of this amps driving my snell type A2 speakers. i find them more tube sounding than both my D79B one w/ 6550a output tube the other w/ kt88s, and also in comparison to my D250 mk2 servo.they sound musical w/ incredible imaging.the only problem is it goes to some sort of auto shut down ( i think its related to the tube saver circuit but im not sure about this) when the amp clips or when there is a sudden surge or spike in the power line.i use to bash the classic series amps when they 1st came out during the early 90s specially when they were using chinese 6550s. but when russian 6550s were use they sounded very good and i swallowed my pride and bought this flagship.currently using an arc sp10 mk2 to drive my amps.
theyre reliable and dont have regrets.