ARC sp10 joy and concern...

I finally went and purchased an ARC sp10 via Ebay! It arrived damaged (which happens far too often), but was insured. After repair, my tech is recommending retubing (the tubes test strong, but are original). Thanks to all of you who have shared such good posts on the 'Gon and Audio Asylum (newbie, jafox, bambi, et al)! Have decided to start with new ARC tubes and will work from there overtime.

My problem now is a buzzing (similar to a noisy flourscent lite) coming from the Power Source. I've tried removing the binding post link on the back of the pre, but the buzz persists. It is not heard over the speakers. I think it might be noisy tubes, but am open to other thoughts.

BTW was quite pleasantly surprised to find the 10 is a Mark II (Leonard at ARC was his usual helpful self)! I was also shocked at how great the pre sounded right away - despite the buzz. I'm replacing an ARC sp11 with upgraded phono (Seimens gold pin 6dj8s) and line stage (Bugle Boy 6922s) tubes. Even with its original tubes, the improvement of the 10 over the 11 really shocked me. That's one reason I'm hoping the buzz isn't because of the old tubes!

Am undecided on the fate of the sp11. Until all of the kinks are worked out of the 10, it will be a fabulous back up.

My overall system consists of two ARC D115 Mk IIs (passive bi-amping) with a VPI Scout (Grado Sonata) and Oskar Heil Kithara speakers. ICs are XLO with Cardas on the phono. The speaker cables are Xindak FS1 with which I just replaced my XLO Type 5s. I don't listen to CDs.

Comments welcome!

Dave