Audio Research M100 Thumping

Thanks. I gave up and took it to a "guy." He is finding all kinds of problems, mostly poor workmanship by prior repair attempts. The person who owned it before me spent $1,000 on shoddy work. And it was not local, so he paid shipping too. I befuddles me why he would not just have shipped it to c-j and had it done right (and probably for less). It is so modified now c-j told me they would not touch it. But my guy is good (did fantastic work on my McIntosh MR-67), so I have high confidence.

Yup I have an ARC SP-10 that's been modified and the work was simply awful. It's taken me forever to find all the problems wrong with it but I think I'm finally in the home stretch.

Everything appears to be working correctly now. My guy had to replace caps which had the wrong ones installed, replace tubes which were the wrong tubes, re-solder throughout, re-wire the volume control which had been hacked, and do some rewiring on the power supply/ground. I had the specs, so he redid everything to spec. And now everything works.

He described ARCs in general as great sounding but running on the ragged edge - so innovative and creative that they sometimes pushed the envelope a bit too far, often to the detriment of longevity.