ARC Ref 210...tube virgin

adg101 is right. It's usually the norm to use a great tube preamp with any number of SS amps (sticking with mono amps is a good plan). I've had my eye on a Pass 250.8 (stereo) and Pass 100.8 (monos).

@rhljazz - what don't you like about ARC amps?

@cleeds - I initially wanted a speaker upgrade but the opportunity of the deal that was presented unfortunately required the sale of my GamuT M250i mono blocks (I haven't sold them yet) so I wanted to replace them with a good affordable alternative on the used market. I've heard good things about the Ref 210 & always wanted to try tubes.

@adg101 - why don't you like ARC amps?

If an output tube fails would you rather replace the tube and a fuse or send the amp out for repair?  That's what I don't like.  Plus some ARC amps are not user friendly for bias adjustment although the Ref 210 appears to have a user friendly bias adjustment.

To make it explicit, I think rhljazz is alluding to ARC tube amps having the tendency to blow out a resistor and sometimes a capacitor when a tube fails (which they do), necessitating repair after a "normal" maintenance event in a tube amp's life.

I know I sold off some ARC Classic 120 mono's that sounded just wonderful, but I sure got tired of the trip to ARC for repair when a tube went out (and they had a lot of them).  It seems that the ARC design philosophy still allows for this weakness.

I believe the ARC design team feels fuses on output power tubes cause an unacceptable loss of sound quality in their amps. They prefer to sacrifice a resistor (or more) to protect the rest of the amp rather than sacrifice the loss in sq they have found fuses to cause in their amps. It is up to the consumer to decide if they want to own and maintain an amp so designed. There are, after all, other real good sounding power amps which DO have fused output tubes, not requiring repair every time a power tube fails!