ARC Ref 75 vs. Ref 75 SE

Bdp24 ... I respectfully disagree with your views about modern ARC amps. I think your car analogy is ridiculous and simply not fair.

As to the mysterious Mr. Tom's comment, I don't recall ever seeing burn marks on the circuit boards of any of my ARC amps. Nor do I understand Mr. Tom's comment that mounting power tubes on the circuit board is a bad idea. Where else should they be mounted? Btw, is Mr. Tom an electrical engineer. Does he design and manufacture Class A electronics??

Just an fyi, ARC has been in business for over 40 years. That stands for something to me.

Your mid-1980s Bill Johnson story is not relevant. ARC gear has come a long way since 1985. And your anecdotal comments about the SP-3 are similarly not relevant nor persuasive. The SP-3 was first introduced in 1972 and was later modified several times in the 1970s.

Nowhere do you mention that you actually listened to modern ARC gear. So I'll ask you now. Have you ever seriously auditioned a current ARC Reference amp such as the Ref 75 or Ref 150, or the Ref 5 SE linestage?

Finally, I will conclude by saying that at some point, our hobby comes down to very subjective tastes. If you seriously listened to modern ARC gear and walked away underwhelmed, I would respect your opinion. However, bashing ARC for its design choices concerning bias resisters is just a bit over the top for me.

Cheers,

BIF

Bifwynne, Do you check the bias of your tubes regularly and replace them after about 2500 hours or so? The reason I ask is that seems awfully frequent to have problems.

I have owned ARC gear since the late 1980s. Everything from a D70 to my current Ref 110. In that time I have had a tube take out a resistor twice. And then once in the early 1990s I had to send my Sp9 to ARC because it would not come out of mute. That is it, no other problems. But I check my bias about once a month or so to make sure everything is fine. Tubes can drift, especially when the tubes are new.

Having a problem twice a year seems way to frequent.

There's nothing mysterious about Tom. He's been the tech at Brooks Berdan Ltd. for ages. He's in the shop on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The rest of the week he's employed at one of the TV studios in L.A.---yes, he's a professional engineer. Does he design and manufacture Class A electronics? Why---is that a requirement to point out what he feels are poor engineering choices? Of course, in his profession, reliability is taken very seriously. In consumer-grade electronics, he is very complimentary to Jadis and Music Reference, to name just a couple of companies.

Where should power tubes be mounted? On the chassis, as they are in those Jadis and MR amps, as well as Atma-Sphere's and others. Heck, even budget amps from the 60's had that! If you haven't seen burn marks around the tube sockets in ARC amps, perhaps it's because ARC owners seem to be constantly "upgrading" to new, improved models before the boards get singed from the heat---ARC tends to run their tubes relatively hard. The one's I looked at in the shop clearly had burned circuit boards. Which is bad enough, but what of the parts thereupon mounted? Heat can shorten their lifespan drastically.

The car tire/suspension was an analogy, not to be taken literally. Still, it's not that much of a stretch, IMO!

Yes, I've heard modern ARC products (and owned a couple until a few months ago. I still have the LS-1 I bought from Randy at Optimal Enchantment almost twenty-five years ago!). And yes, they sound great, but that's not the issue. There are many great sounding amps and pre-amps now, no need to settle for failure-prone ones. Are ARC power amps more likely to fail than other tube amps? Seems like it to me, just anecdotally. And though you may feel the bias resistor design in ARC power amps is acceptable, I consider it a ridiculous way to build an amplifier, I don't care how good it sounds. No, I don't design and manufacture Class A electronics.

But it's the constant, frequent, expensive, never-ending "improved" versions of each and every ARC model that disgusts me. ARC pulls the same stunt on every new model, leaving out the improvements that could have been incorporated into the original version (always increasing the power supply capacity, right? How many times can ARC "rediscover" that concept?), so as to generate new revenue from the same customer of the same model a year or two or three down the road (oops, another car analogy ;-), without having to sell him a new piece of gear. I'll bet THAT has played a significant role in keeping ARC in business for forty years. But ARC is doing fine without me---they have a loyal customer base, one whose members don't seem to mind being manipulated. Do I need to design and manufacture Class A electronics to have that opinion?

Sheesh, I didn't intend to ARC bash (though when pushed I obviously have no problem doing so), just to offer the tip above about a great alternative tube power amp, one that I prefer to own over any ARC. No, I haven't heard most of them (remember, it's not their sound I question), and couldn't afford them anyway. The Music Reference RM200 is available, by the way, with transformers (the heart of every tube power amp) hand-wound personally by Roger Modjeski, something I don't believe anyone at ARC is capable of doing. They don't offer that option, at any rate, no matter how much you pay for one of their amps. The sacrificial bias resistors, however, are mandatory, though free of charge. Until, that is, they need to be replaced.

I just now remembered another tactic ARC has employed that I find most objectionable---last one, I promise!

When the LS-2Mk.2 was being discontinued, ARC shipped their remaining inventory to select dealers at a discount, who then also sold them discounted. The ARC dealer in Orange County, California advertised the pre-amp and it's price, and included in the ad the fact that the remaining available LS-2MK.2's were ARC reconditioned pieces. Fine, all above reproach. The original price of the pre-amp had been $2995 (I've always loved the blank blank ninety-five pricing structure of ARC---very classy!), the close-out price $1995.

However, once all the reconditioned LS-2MK.2's were sold through, what did ARC then do? Why, they offered their remaining stock of non-reconditioned LS-2 MK2's at the same $1995 price! I don't know how you would feel, but I felt violated!! If they were honorable, ARC would have offered the remaining stock of both reconditioned and non-reconditioned LS-2Mk.2's at different price points (say, $1495 and $1995, respectively). Don't you agree? I vowed then to never again buy a "new" ARC piece, which I haven't. Who needs to?---there are so many used one's around!