Audio Research REF 750 pre July 4 FIRE WORKS. TUBE ARC.


Well I just had time to finally hook up my new Audio Ref 6 se for the first time as I got it back from AR last week. So I waited patiently for my night off from work last night and was also very excited to finally hear that for the first my Audio Research REF 750s. that came with the KT 150s with 660 hrs on them. I was really enjoying the beautiful sound of these phenomenal amps for a few hours and called my wife up to hear how amazing Barbra Streisand sounded playing The way we were. I had all the lights off in my listening room and we were lost in the sound quality as my B&W matrix 800 speakers disappeared and melted also to the beautiful sound of her voice and when all of a sudden there was an explosion as I had first thought. The middle of the top KT150s there was a loud SIZZLE a FIREBALL and a loud POP !!!! And WHITE SMOKE and then cut off. We immediately jumped up and my heart sank as I yelled OMG. I jumped up and ran to my L amp and I pulled the plug while the R amp and speaker was still playing. I said WTF happened?? My heart sank in my stomach as the first thing I thought was now after all the anticipation of that night to finally arrive I was now devastated as I had no idea WTF just happened. I was numb. I finally calmed down some looked over the amp on top. Didn’t see no damage and texted my guy that I bought them from and he told me it sounds like a tube arc. He then told me to take all the top tubes out but u can leave the 2 inside ones in. He then said to carefully take off the top cover as I did. I turned the cover over and saw black underneath as I then turned it over I saw it was V10. He said now look at the resistors by V10 socket. Sure enough the wire leads were gone. He said your V10 tube is shot and u will need to replace the resistors by V10 socket. I said does it have to be sent to ARC ? As I just got delivered the REF 6SE that had been upgraded and just got it back from ARC on Tuesday. I couldn’t think now about packing up the Left Ch REF 750 and shipping it back to ARC. He said nope no need to. Just have the Resistors replaced and get a new V10 tube with the same number on it from ARC. And call your ARC dealer here in NJ to see if his technician can come to my home and replace and solder the new resistors back on. Put the new KT 150 in and you will be back in business. So now I am waiting for my ARC dealer to open this morning and hopefully he will tell me some good news. Just don’t understand how or why this happened? Has anyone else had a similar experience? Wow I will tell ya that it was a very scary thing.BTW I never owned a tube amp except for my REF6 SE pre so this is still very new to me.

128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xtattooedtrackman

I guess you have never heard that there are brands of gear that have over the years with great reputations that are putting cheaper and cheaper parts into their units but yet the prices don't reflect this. Additionally, people here on this forum have stated they have sent there Mac in for repair and when it comes back depending on who benched it with more problems than before it's sent in. How much research have you done on these topics?

It's like SLR cameras in the 1970 and 1980 Cannon us to build their products like Tanks example the FTb N years later you would pick up a one of their camera an unless it was an F1 most parts that used to be steel where no spray painted plastic

Of course I have heard such stories, as well as having experienced it with some products, but I have not experienced this with McIntosh, nor have I read a significant number of complaints about their reliability or service, and I have been here for a very long time.

Sorry to hear about your trouble.  I had a REF 5se that had problems with the mute function (sound bleeding through the right channel) and also blew the 6550 in the power supply.  That took out a a good bit of the board around that tube.  This was when the pandemic was starting to wind down, so ARC wasn't accepting out-of-warranty units for repair.  ARC recommended that Ben Jacoby in Brooklyn repair it.  Ben has an excellent reputation.  Bottom line is that he repaired the damaged board, but couldn't ultimately get the mute function to work properly.  Also, the preamp always sounded too bright.  I ended up selling it to a mutual friend at a fire-sale price.  My REF 75se, by the way, is working and sounds great.🤞🤞