Audio Research 75 SE

I actually found the KT-150s to be a huge step up in the Ref 75, particularly in the bottom end. Best money I ever spend in audio.

That said, I'm also super curious to hear how the upgrades change things.

According to my source, the KT-150 tubes account for about 40% to 50% of the improvement in the SE amps.

On the KT-150s ... they take a good 100 hours of break-in to start sounding their best.

Hmmmm, well Obfiscation Central were hardly going to leak any other set of percentages were they? when one does the math on the residual $3000 for a handfull of resistors and capacitors, together with a meter or so of silver plated copper wire!!! Or are we being taken full circle back to ' costly proprietary Teflon ' Capacitor Gate once again?

Those ARC technicians must charge more per hour than my Wife's Orthodontist and Gynaecologist put together!

Well, all I can say to you, Tsushimal ... is that ARC, like all businesses, has expensed to meet. Your post reminded me of the old joke where a brain surgeon had to call in a plumber to fix a major leak in his home. When the plumber presented the bill to the brain surgeon, the surgeon looked at the bill, then looked totally shocked at the plumber and said: "Hey pal, I'm a brain surgeon ... and I don't make this kind of money." The plumber looked the surgeon n the eye and said ... "Neither did I when I was a brain surgeon."

I had recently changed my capacitors from white to red when one of the capacitors went bad on my REF 250s. ARC also replace the wire at that time and I later upgraded to KT 150. But did not hear much difference after all these changes.