ARC Support

ARC has done very similar things to many of their customers. They screwed me as well on an upgrade. Leonard, their "voice", is the "beware of this company" red flag. He is quite inept and has the personality of a rock. While the products are ok, they have the worst customer service I have ever experienced. Dave, their sales manager misled me when I was interested in buying one of their products. I called him and asked him specifically if there was an upgrade for the REF2 in the works and he assured me there was not. Eighteen days after I recieved my brand new REF 2, the company announced the release of the REF2 MKII. Dave then told me I would have to pay the full upgrade price. After I made a big enough stink, he agreed to drop the price of the upgrade down by 50%, but the damage was already done for me. Every time I have dealt with them it has ended in misery for me. They never return calls and do not care about customers.

I recommend people not support this company, they will not support you.

Another thing that really bugs me is their tube prices !
From their catalog:

VT100, VT100MKII (8) MP6550 (8) 6922 $839.40

Other sources charge under 400 for these SAME tubes. These are bone-stock, modern day svetlana's and sovteks. You can buy them over the counter at over a dozen places in ANY major city. ARC's claim that their tubes are 'more tested' has little relation to reality.

I like their equipment. They use good solid engineering with readily available tubes and materials. (I also like the sound) It's some of their corporate policies that are just awful.

I've also found Leonard to be most uncommunicative. Anyway, I hear ARC is already coming out with a Mk. II version of their mono amp just below the Ref 300 grade.

I live in the UK. Last year I bought a used ref2 from a private seller on Audiogon. Before the unit was shipped I telephoned Leonard at Audio Research to ask for the unit to be voltage converted to 240V at the factory. As described in posts above he refused to carry it out. I therefore had to take the unit to the UK distributor, Absolute Sounds. When I telephoned The MD of absolute sounds he reeled off a list of horror stories about the dangers of bringing in used goods from the States and did everything possible to dissuade me from proceeding. He quoted me a price of £375($525) for voltage conversion -outrageous but I had no choice. However, when I took the unit in, he told me that the conversion would actually cost £675 ( about $925)because they had to order extra "parts". The work involved in voltage conversion is minimal- even according to Leonard himself!

I feel that this kind of behaviour represents pure greed on the distributor's part- they cannot stand the fact that they have 'lost' a new sale even though I would never buy new hifi from the USA in Britain due to the extortionate mark-up ( $ price is simply changed to £ in most cases). ARC are in collusion with their distributors to prevent international trade in used products.

Also I agree that their introduction of costly 'upgrades' barely months after the introduction of a new product is reprehensible and insulting to customers who have made such an expensive investment.

Unfortunately the gear sounds good IMHO........

Over many years Len has treated me as if I were royality.They stand behind their products and offer parts and service for any product they have made for the past 30 years. Only a few hi-end companies have been in business that long.They are not the product of the week.ARC has always been reasonable for any mods,parts and service which I have required and I have found the service,product and their people to be fair and honest.A very happy and satisified ARC customer Rosemke