Does anyone care to ask an amplifier designer a technical question? My door is open.

@ramtubes

Roger, you wrote:

"The difference between Bill Johnson amps and the current products is night and day. I appreciate the simplicity but not so much the performance specs. However specs arent everything. We are finding out some very interesting things on some listening tests. Very hard to get a really good handle on an amp without an A/B and a reference."

Not sure what you feel is deficient with the ARC Ref 150SE specs.  If you care to elaborate, please do.

Also, have you ever bench tested the Ref 150 SE or Ref 6 linestage?  Further, have you ever A/B'd any current ARC models against other brands that you think highly about?

My speakers are pretty sensitive.  Rated at 92db.  I can play music (rock or classical) at ear-splitting levels without any apparent sonic congestion. Of course, I can't speak to distortion because I don't have the means or ability to measure those specs.

That said, maybe it really does not matter what I think.  There are a million threads where folks tout the attributes of their gear and so I guess everyone has their own favorites.  

In any case, I would like to know your reactions if you bench tested or critically listened to any *current" ARC gear.

Keep an eye peeled for my KT-150s.  I am also sending some old ARC winged C 6550s that I used on some older ARC amps (roughly 2000 hours on the tubes).  I would like to know if they have juice left in them.  Also, the 6550s might give you a clue about the tubes specs ARC used to match their tubes for purposes of matching my KT-150s.  The KT-150s are da*n expensive tubes.

Regards

BIF

Jim B did Dynaco 400, SAE, GAS and SUMO products. Brilliant guy.

@bdp24 - Eric this has truly been an eye opener. Roger can now do A/Bing on any number of amps. Fritz Heilor lives in the area recently donated a pair of speakers to us to use in a biamping experiment (Roger is impressed with his designs), so besides the Quads we have some box speakers available to us as well. The more the merrier I say. However, this listening stuff is really hard. After an hour or so I really needed a break. While some of the  differences were not subtle, in may cases you really had to focus to hear the differences, and at least to my ears, there were cases where there was no difference at all.

I put the proper cord on my RM-9 but now people want me to put an IEC on there so they can use theirs. I did opimize but thats not good enough for the PC and fuse people. May I also offer that a captive cord has one less pair of connections

That is what I suspected you would say. I have tested expensive upgraded power cords in my system and never noticed any improvement or difference. I notice large differences between amps, preamps, cartridges, cartridge loading and even in minor changes of speaker toe in. But in my system, I have yet to hear any difference between pc's. I am not saying there are no differences, just that I haven’t heard any so far in my system, compared to the cord included by the manufacturer. 

We need to stay away from the power cord debate here, imo. However, I have stated in other cable threads the subtle, to dramatic differences pcs make, to these ears. Cannot explain why, and I do not really care. But in my listening room, with my equipment and system, and with every one of my familiar recordings, I hear it immediately. I am talking about IEC cords, and those I have replaced with hotwiring. Sorry Roger, I will try and stay on point. Enjoy ! MrD.