Audio Research or Macintosh?

I would never buy an ARC, too many horror stories about tubes failing and causing damage....  use anything but a tube purchased from them and take your chances.  

McIntosh is the more reliable brand without question.  I have owned a few McIntosh components over the years and never a problem.  I put some new lamps in my buddy's C26 and it cleaned up and sounded great....  still working and its 50 years old...  it appears it had a recap in the 90's but still.....

it is unfortunate that arc tube amps don’t implement best possible measures to deal with tube expiration...

but many many folks learn to manage it and feel the tradeoff is well worth it for the exemplary sound

for some others, not the case... it’s all good... the world keeps turning

I've had a number of ARC amps and preamps and never have had a problem with any of them.  Mac looks cooler, ARC sounds better (to me).

Thanks to everyone for their opinion and feedback, very helpful. An opportunity kind of made my mind up for me as a fellow on Canuck Audio was selling a VSi75 with a set of KT120' and KT150's with only a 100 hours on both. His unit came with the 120's but he contacted AR and they said there was no issue using 150's so he bought a very expensive set from them; I think I will go to the Tube Store or Upsacle when I need new ones. The only issue now is to get a Cardas XLR to RCA adapter as I am currently running a balanced interconnect from my Audio Analogue Settanta to me Ayre P-5xe; no balanced inputs on the 75.
Cheers.

Sorry, that is obviously the other way around, from Ayre phono preamp to Settanta.