Audio Research Reference 5SE reliability


After reading the glowing revieuw on the Stereophile-website by Brian Damkroger on the ARC REF5SE there was a comment that: quote: by Audioware on nov 15, 2012,

"These pres are outstanding. However the problem is their poor reliability. 06 (six) of them were already on my services bench this year to fix problems with the transformer that feeds the dgital, the remote control and the on-off switch, circuits. It is a small xformer below the circuit board that burns out frequently. Another very serious problem is with the 6H30s filament regulators that do not stand for the increased current demanded by the new 6H30s intead of the old 6922s. ARC has to pay more attention to these problems!"

I already checked my dealer, who was really surprised and did not recognise these problems.

Comments will be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
sequence56
I have over 10" above the preamp to the woodshelf above. It is a very open construction, so ventilation of heat is no problem, no knobs are getting hot, only the top of the preamp itself just above the biggest tube warms up considerably.
Anwar, what is the input impedance of your McIntosh MC452 amp? Is it over 20K ohms?
Anwar, I checked the MAC web site. Input impedance is 22,000 ohms Balanced and unbalanced. That just 2K ohms over the minimum ARC recommends. If you load any other devices (e.g., subwoofer) to the Ref 5's output, you may overload the Ref 5.
I drive my MC601s with the 5SE, no problems. The 601s are 20K and I believe the 452 is as well. I have always been an ARC tube amp customer, but I was so impressed with the 601s I traded in my VT200 for them. Never been a Mac fan or a "hater", but these are really very fine amplifiers.