Wow, quite a vocal thread here! I must chime in for my support for Counterpoint and Michael Elliot. Mikesinger clearly has a lot of unfortunate history with Mr. Elliot but my experiences are much different.
I got a used NPS400 severely damaged through careless shipping by the seller and Mr. Elliot made so much effort to get this unit repaired and upgraded to the level I could afford. And he was very detailed with all the options and benefits. In just a couple weeks I had the amp back and what a pleasant surprise it was over the ARC Classic 150 amps.
As a fan of ARC products since the early 80s, and an owner of many such models, I was quite suprised at how the NPS400 embarrassed the CL150s. The NPS400 was far more tonally balanced, not fatiguing nor forward like the ARCs, and simply put, was a far more musical presentation with the Thiel 3.6, Talon Khorus and Magnepan 3.5 that I owned.
The ARC CL60 which I owned a few years back was quite a good little amp, but neither it nor the CL150s are even remotely close to the NPS400 in sheer naturalness. It just too a change to the Wolcott mono amps to truly bring on a significant refinement over the NPS400 to drive the Magnepans.
I have to disagree that what we need is a company to give us a sound that returns to the ARC hybrid days. No thank you! The SP-11, SP-15, LS2, Classic series, amps, etc.....no thank you! "Yawn, where's the music?" Give me the all-tubed SP-8, SP-10, LS5, VT130/150 amps any day. Like I said, I'm a huge ARC fan here, but Counterpoint simply did a far more musical job than ARC when it came to hybrid products. And yes, reliability is an issue, but I too had some catastrophic events with tubes blowing in the VT130 amp. It was not pretty with power resistors exploding in the process! But I have been fortunate to live only a few minutes from the ARC facility.
I guess until I experience a reliability problem with the NPS400, I can only talk of the positive sides of Counterpoint and Mr. Elliot. Both the ARC staff and Mr. Elliot are first rate with customer support.
John
I got a used NPS400 severely damaged through careless shipping by the seller and Mr. Elliot made so much effort to get this unit repaired and upgraded to the level I could afford. And he was very detailed with all the options and benefits. In just a couple weeks I had the amp back and what a pleasant surprise it was over the ARC Classic 150 amps.
As a fan of ARC products since the early 80s, and an owner of many such models, I was quite suprised at how the NPS400 embarrassed the CL150s. The NPS400 was far more tonally balanced, not fatiguing nor forward like the ARCs, and simply put, was a far more musical presentation with the Thiel 3.6, Talon Khorus and Magnepan 3.5 that I owned.
The ARC CL60 which I owned a few years back was quite a good little amp, but neither it nor the CL150s are even remotely close to the NPS400 in sheer naturalness. It just too a change to the Wolcott mono amps to truly bring on a significant refinement over the NPS400 to drive the Magnepans.
I have to disagree that what we need is a company to give us a sound that returns to the ARC hybrid days. No thank you! The SP-11, SP-15, LS2, Classic series, amps, etc.....no thank you! "Yawn, where's the music?" Give me the all-tubed SP-8, SP-10, LS5, VT130/150 amps any day. Like I said, I'm a huge ARC fan here, but Counterpoint simply did a far more musical job than ARC when it came to hybrid products. And yes, reliability is an issue, but I too had some catastrophic events with tubes blowing in the VT130 amp. It was not pretty with power resistors exploding in the process! But I have been fortunate to live only a few minutes from the ARC facility.
I guess until I experience a reliability problem with the NPS400, I can only talk of the positive sides of Counterpoint and Mr. Elliot. Both the ARC staff and Mr. Elliot are first rate with customer support.
John