Final? ARC Chapter...

I'd say ARC is a really high end Mid Fi. The build quality is outstanding on the older stuff. In the world of hand built gear It's a mass produced product. 

An ARC ex-employee told me the McIntosh days there were awful. Bad morale and boring non-innovation with lots of re-branding.

It was really WZ Johnson's baby and when he got too ill to work the momentum slowed and so did the quality. 

I think the stuff is overpriced when new but the used market has good value. 15K for a ref 750 is a good deal. 3K for a SP-10 is a good deal. 5K for a CD9 is a fair deal. Basically wait 2 years and the stuff can be bought for 1/2 of retail which is honest fair market price equilibrium. 

I agree that some ARC gear sounds better than other ARC gear.  I have used their preamps since the 1980s and their DACs.  I found much better DACs. I think their preamps are some of the best around.  I like the sound of the DAugostino preamp (the really expensive one) better but not enough for the cost difference.  I have found ARC preamps to be very reliable.  Since the 1980s I have had to send just one preamp in for repair.  It turned out to be a broken wire in the umbilical of my SP-15 preamp.  I used a SP-6b for 14 years and the SP-15 for 18 years.  I had a SP-9 for a year or two.  It didn't do much for me.  Currently using the Ref 5SE.  Yes, the 6550C runs very hot and that worries me.  I have good clearance over the top of the preamp to allow plenty of airflow.  I don't run that tube more than 2000 hours.

I hope that ARC is able to recover.  It all depends on how much the new owner is willing to invest and how long the new owner is willing to wait for a return on that investment.  I watched MF's video tour of the factory made last week.  Looks like they have lost some engineering/technical talent.  I also noticed they are struggling to release their new high powered Ref tube amp that was slated to come out about a year ago.  The company will be treading water for a while mostly building current product and service support.  Supply chain is a huge challenge these days and consumes engineering support to work with suppliers and replace discontinued items needed for production.  Provided the new owner invests and ramps up hiring it will still be several years before they are able to release new products.  Will the market be patient enough to wait?

I hope they do not outsource the engineering work.  Perhaps they do already.  It is a trend that has been growing for a few decades now.  I argued to management that the engineers are not a commodity, that they are the product- the heart and soul of the product.  But the engineering work load rises and falls depending on the state of the projects and new business.  Engineers get pushed to work overtime (unpaid mostly) when demand is up but then get laid off as soon as the workload drops.  Management really likes the idea of contracting the work out to low cost countries and having the flexibility to increase/decrease headcount on demand.  Over the long term innovation is lost, the product itself becomes a commodity- ie. no differentiation in the market and sales decline.  Eventually the company or that product line ceases to exist.  I’ve seen it several times now over the years.  The worst part is that the cycle continues.

It always started with sending out drawing/design work.  Drafting and design drawings are time consuming.  Outsourcing was the easy way to relieve the pressure.  The thing is the competitor’s drawings are being worked on by a designer one seat over.  Second, this outsourcing house most likely has never touched or held the product in their hand, let alone see how it is made. 

Mid Fi at best. Nothing is special about the brand. Good for ARC that it found a buyer.

New ARC stuff has seemed a little too expensive to me for years so, meh...I do like the fact that they're around anyway as it's sort of comforting. Fremer had a recent youtube ARC facility tour thing that was interesting, especially the part where the ARC dude says something like, "we have to hire another repair tech as we're 3 months behind." That hints at issues right there...