Audio Research Ref. 210 questions

Power chords will make a significant difference, tubes will make a difference, presumably feet will make a difference as well. . . but. . . until your equipment is fully broken in (at least 500 hours of real playing time) it will change sound quite wildly all by itself. . . if you start fiddling now, you will end up over compensating for temporary artifacts. . . and in the end you'll have to change every little tweak all over again because the amps will just sound. . . darn wrong. Guido

thanks for the reply. The amps were preowned and have been thur the first set of tubes. The current tubes have about 40 hrs so I guess they will need more time too..?

What speakers and pre-amp are you using these with? I would agree with Guidocorona's response.

Mantis007 you just sold your Cary CAD-211 AE's right, what sonic differences are you noticing being apparent right from the get go.

I have interest in the 210's also but I've been on the fence for a year now mainly because I just can't get over the noisy fans. I have heard these in a dealer's situation I can clearly hear the fans and if placed in my set-up I sit aprox 10ft away I would hear them clearly. What bothered me the most when listening to them was that on quiet passages or in between songs I could heard them which is distracting me.

hi Dev, I'm using a BAT VK52-SE pre and Usher BE-20 speakers. I did sell the 211's but had a totally different system at the time. The fans are real easy to replace and I plan on doing that. I have the covers off for now and the fans disconnected. The fan noise bothered me too - it only took about 5 min. and I disconnected them. The amps don't seem to run very hot either - not any more than the Lamm M1.2's I just sold. I'm really curious about power cables because they have made a huge difference with all of the previous amps I've owned. I may just get a 20-15 amp adapter and try my current Ridge Street Audio Alethias Cu PC's.

Mantis007, I was communicating with someone who has the 210's and uses Elrod power cords and said the difference was very positive.

Why did you sell the Lamm's and Cary's?

The Cary amps you had, what would you say the difference is between these and the ARC 210's and also Lamm. You have had some great amps in you system.

Thanks for the info. regarding the fans in the 210's, sounds easy enough and would resolve that problem.