Buy tubes from Audio Research or not

I don't know any onsite people that can do the job. The 2 techs I talked to were both authorized ARC and they will only work with ARC tubes. I can't afford to pay 978.00 for tubes plus 150.00 labor. I'd be happy to buy the tubes and have someone put them in but I don't know anyone. If you know someone that can do it I'll be happy to pay them as long as they know what they are doing.

Taters,
You really need to get to know your equipment better and learn how to do maintenance for yourself.It's very rewarding and also saves you a lot of money.Changing tubes and biasing them should not be that much of a challenge,unless your amp is some kind of weird/exotic design.I can't imagine an ARC amp fitting either one of those discriptions.Good luck.

Taters check this description with pictures!!
This is from The Tube Store SED Winged "C" Tubes page.

http://mycollins.net/audio/artube1.html

I own the VT100mk1 and there is NO individual bias setting on each tube, you can only ajust the whole channel at one and that is why matched tubes are very important.
My dealer said that ARC keeps a data base of each amps bias settings when it leaves the factory. When you order tubes you need to give the serial # of the amp, and they sell you tubes that are marched close to your amp and you don't really need to worry about bias settings when you put in tubes. ARC will mark each tube to tell which socket it goes in. IS THIS TRUE, CAN ANYONE THAT HAS REALLY DONE THIS VERIFY? thanks in advance.

There is a reason ARC charge as much for the tubes as they do - they measure their tubes, burn them in inhouse for 48h, measure them again - and then throw away those that up to specs. As much as 30% tubes gets rejected this way. No other independent tube supplier I'm aware of does offer this kind of service.