audio research sells out good or bad ?

bad, bad, and really bad. The brand will always be there, the quality, engineering and passion will not. If you doubt this, just look what happened to McIntosh. Sad. Quadrivio is deep into China, and you know where that leads. Not announced, but already happening is the appointment of a finance guy who will be resident on site at ARC home base. Let the counting begin.

I think the owner was getting on in age, so it was pretty well inevitable.

The report I saw on the Stereophile web site said all the right things to make the audiophile world feel warm and cozy about this. Only time will tell if they maintain the status quo. I think the experience with Sonus Faber is encouraging so I wouldn't worry about it ... yet.

Good or bad for whom? Good for William Z. and the company principals. Not necessarily bad for audiophiles who love ARC products. See what the future holds :)

It doesn't sound like a good thing to me. I agree that when big suits are watching the bottom line, sonics and service tend to be the first cuts.
Mondial selling the Aragon line to Klipsch, Classe selling to B&W, and Madrigal selling the Mark Levinson line to Harmon International are prime examples.
As with all things in life though, when one door closes, another door opens. Who knows, maybe this will help some of the new smaller manufacturers like Dodd, Audio Horizons, Doshi, and others.

It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the Audio Research products on the used market.

Cheers,
John