@ramtubes
You wrote the following regarding ARC:
Im sorry, but you asked. I'm sorry to be so negative about ARC, but I was a dealer for them from 1975 to 1980. If you have not heard about the "pink papers" thats a story in itself. ARC treats dealers with a heavy hammer, large opening order and threats if you do not follow the party line. Bill called us up one day because he heard we were doing A/B comparisons for our customers. He said "stop immediately or I will pull the line"
Of course I respect your technical experience and ARC anecdotes, but let me just weigh in on ARC. Perhaps I have been crazy lucky, but I have owned ARC gear for quite awhile and my anecdotal experiences are quite different than yours.
In particular, as far as linestages go, I've owned the Ref 3, Ref 5, Ref 5SE and now currently, the Ref 6. As far as amps go, I've owned the VS110, the VS 115, the Ref 150 and now the Ref 150SE. My CDP is the Ref CD-8 and my phone pre is the PH-8.
To date, I have had only one problem; namely: blown bias resisters in my older amps. Other than that, no other problems whatsoever. In the case of my Ref 150SE, I am running KT-150s. So far, … fingers crossed, ... no problems with arc'ing or blown bias resisters.
As far as bench tests are concerned JA tested the Ref 150 amp, an earlier version of the Ref 150SE. Here is his report:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/audio-research-reference-150-power-amplifierNotably, JA reported that "Fig.1 indicates that the Ref150 has a wide bandwidth, particularly into loads higher than the nominal tap value, which correlates with a well-defined 10kHz squarewave (fig.2). While this graph reveals a small but critically damped overshoot on the leading edges of the waveform, presumably due to an ultrasonic transformer resonance, no ringing is visible." By comparison, the Ref 75 did not test as well. And you noted the same in your prior post.
I can't speak to whether the circuits in my ARC gear are elegantly simplistic or labyrinthically complex . I am not a EE. But so far, my gear is holding up pretty well.
As far as SQ is concerned, … no comment. I have not had an opportunity to A/B ARC gear against any other brands. But to my untrained ears, my gear seems to sound OK.
Perhaps your views about ARC might change if you road tested some of their current models. I understand that ARC opted to simplify the circuits in its latest offering, the Ref 160 mono blocks. Haven't heard them, but it doesn't matter. I am not going to drop $30K on mono blocks.
Btw, I owe you two quads of KT-150s for matching. The 3rd party vendor from whom I purchase the tubes didn't match the tubes to ARC spec.
Regards,
Bruce
