Do you ever get the feeling that ARC deliberately leaves out the circuit refinements that they end up offering for each of their models a year or two or three after each new model is introduced? As a cynical way to create business in between truly new models? |
I wondered why there were always so many ARC power amps on the trade-in shelves at Brooks Berdan Ltd. Sure, he was a VTL, Jadis, and Mac dealer, so there would be trade-ins, but why so many ARC? Brooks' tech Tom told me he was constantly repairing ARC power amps because when a tube blows in one of them it often takes with it some of the circuit board parts. The tubes aren't fused---ARC uses resistors and capacitors in that role!
Brooks preferred to sell the Music Reference RM200 as his $5k amp, with hand-wound transformers (the heart of any tube power amp), wound by Roger if you pay him extra! 100w/ch from a pair of KT88/6150/KT120 tubes per, power increasing with diminishing impedance, the opposite of a normal tube amp. It sounded very good to Brooks, and Fremer likes it enough to put it in Class A. And with it, no costly, frequent update/upgrades (or, as I like to call them, corrections ;-). Roger works on his designs for years before putting them into production.
Even if you really want a REF75, think about trying to hear the RM200. I love mine. |
Bifwynne, having an ARC repair tech nearby does make ownership of their power amps more reasonable. Imagine having to ship a heavy power amp to Minnesota every time a tube blows! In his writings on amp design and building-in reliability, Roger Modjeski made an analogy something like this: What if a car maker designed and made his vehicles such that when a tire blew (which is likely to happen) the suspension was sacrificed? And that this design choice was made because to prevent damage to the suspension in the event of a tire blowing, the suspension's performance was deemed to have to be slightly compromised. A fair and reasonable trade-off? That's for consumers to decide. Roger claims (of course) that his design protects the amp from damage by tubes without compromising it's sound quality. He states that the idea of using the circuit parts themselves to protect the rest of the amp from damage by it's tubes is just plain, bad engineering. Inelegant, at least!
Tom pointed out something else in the ARC amps---the burn marks on the circuit board, around the tube sockets. Mounting power amp output tube sockets on a circuit board = a very bad idea. In the mid-80's I went to hear Bill Johnson talk when he came to a local dealer. He mentioned that the ARC products were built with a projected lifespan of twenty years. At the time that seemed like an eternity---it doesn't now.
Of course, if you own ARC power amps and haven't had any problems, non of this matters. My history with ARC began in '72 with me turning on my brand new SP-3 pre-amp, fresh out of it's shipping carton. It immediately made a POP! sound, and I had my first smell of a fried resistor. Welcome to ARC ownership! |
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! |
Model updates to facilitate use with a new tube is, of course, an entirely different matter, and most welcome. |
BIF---It's great to hear that your newish ARC power amps have been trouble free. Everyone (except Tim Paravicini!) seems to feel the tubes being made now are pretty darn good, with lower rates of arcing and shorting than in the past, which is especially good news for ARC power amp owners. Keith Herron even advises against tube rolling in his products, saying that while old tubes will change the sound, the new tubes (for instance the Sovtek 12AX7 he uses) provide lower distortion in his circuits. And I really like the look of the ARC natural faceplate with silver handles---very elegant and tasteful. They rid ARC's of the laboratory/industrial look black handles give them.
Bill Johnson had his Winter home only a few miles from me, in Indian Wells, the Bel-Air/Brentwood of the California Desert. He had Brooks out to his place to set-up his turntable, and Brooks, the dirty rat, didn't take me with him! Bill and his Audio Research Corp. created not only great sounding products starting in the very early 70's, thereby turning around the whole decline in sound quality that Hi-Fi was going through at the time (early solid state), but also created the market for high performance music systems. We all owe him an enormous debt.
And though HP and his TAS is often credited with introducing ARC to audiophiles, it was actually J. Gordon Holt who did so in Stereophile, reviewing the SP-2 and Dual 50 in 1971, the SP-3 and D-51 & D-75 the following year. High End shops starting popping up all over the country to sell the new gear, Walter Johnson (who now makes the Last record care products) starting his Audio Arts store near me in Livermore California. I'm still trying to recapture the magic of my first big system that I bought from Walt---Tympani's bi-amped with ARC power amps! |
Knghifi- The Music Reference stock transformer is just fine. Excellent, actually, being an original Roger Modjeski design he has manufactured to his specs. But the art of transformer design, and hand winding them especially, is a dying art. Roger has made a lifetime study of transformers, and by hand winding his design he is able to extend it's bandwidth to a high frequency impossible in a machine-wound transformer---his, ARC's, or anyone else's. I have no idea how much difference it makes in the sound of an amp, and my system is too modest to warrant the extra cost. But it takes Roger about a week to make one, I believe, and a week of Roger's time, or that of any designer/engineer, is, I'm sure we all agree, worth a grand. |
To me, the real crux of the ARC update/improvement matter is this: Let's say about ten years ago you had ten grand to spend on a pre-amp (must be nice!). Amongst your choices were the EAR-Yoshino 912 (designed by Tim Paravicini, a man very much like Roger Modjeski) and the ARC Reference whatever. The Ref, like all ARC products, has been updated/improved numerous times in the ensuing years, while the 912 remains unchanged. And the 912 STILL sounds better! How much has the owner of a Ref pre-amp spent to keep his pre-amp competitive? About the same as it's original cost? Hey, I'm just asking.
Now, look inside a Ref pre-amp, then inside a 912. The Ref chassis is stuffed with parts, lots and lots of them. Some may find this simple-minded, but to me it seems like the ARC designers have lost their way, and are just throwing everything but the kitchen sink into their electronics. Turntable critics feel the same about Harry Weisfeld's VPI designs. First one design, then another, then a third, each time claiming the new design is the best way to make a turntable. Every time ARC announces an update to a product, it is touted as being a drastic/huge/etc. improvement over the previous incarnation. You'd think with all the radical improvements, reproduced music would by now sound better than live! |
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