Audio Research filing for bankruptcy?

@mofimadness 

Shows how little I know. I’d assumed given Audio Reseach’s pedigree and long standing high end tenure they’d be on very solid ground financially.

Charles

I've owned AudioResearch phonostage... Notably their equipment runs extremely HOT and may need service from time to time and even more often then that. Thankfully it isn't very sophisticated so the local tech can troubleshoot  and repair it.

Sad news. They set the benchmark in the States with the SP-3 preamp. I owned a fair amount of their gear back in the day, stopping at the SP-10mkii preamp and a succession of their amps. W Z Johnson was a force in the industry- hard to get the line as a dealer-

They went through a number of different periods- from classic but very open sounding tubes to what I called their "white period" where the sound was drier, bleached, to the later Reference line which was very good. I stopped dealing with them in the '90s not for any reason other than that I changed directions. I still have my original Dual 75a that I bought new in 1975, awaiting a recap and retube (I have all the power tubes I bought from ARC 15 years ago). Still have some of the old literature showing prices with Magnepan- that was a big deal system back in the day- ARC electronics with the big Tympani panels. 

I hope for the sake of their customers and the legacy of the brand that this gets turned around. 

One of the ARC execs just posted on What's Best- company is open, running, they hope to have a new owner quickly. We have a bunch of threads on this. I reached out to TPTB to see if these could be consolidated.

Bill Hart

Just posted on WBF.

“Hello, everyone. This is my first post on What's Best because I want you to know what is happening at Audio Research. Some of you know me since I was hire by Bill Johnson at Audio Research in 1989. I left for a few years and returned to ARC in 1996. 
We will be posting a statement on the Fans of Audio Research's FB page, and also the company's FB page as this seems the fastest way to get the facts out.
Nathanu's post is correct. What almost no one seems to realize is that Audio Research has been running since the assignment was filed on April 4th, almost four weeks ago. That was a week and a half before AXPONA, where our VP Sales (Allan Haggar) worked with Quintessence Audio (REF10, REFPH10, 160M MkII). We are staffed, with customer service answering the phone, the service department is repairing products, production is building new products, we are receiving parts, our sales department continues to accept orders, and our shipping department is shipping parts and product orders along with service work. 
Trent Suggs was relieved of control of Audio Research. We have been working with individuals who want to purchase the company, and I expect that we will have a new owner within the week. There will be continuity as production, engineering, purchasing, service, and critical personnel will remain working for Audio Research. Warren Gehl, too. 
I am writing this quickly as there are a lot of things to attend to immediately. Thanks to Mike for sending me this link to this so I could respond”