Kudos to Audio Research

Tdaudio...kudos to ARC indeed. Although, I suspect since you bought the Ref 2 and Ref 5 new that they did not want to alienate a good customer :-) which is good business practice and so still kudos to them. Quick question, what did you have before the 210s? If you had the Ref 110s before, I would be curious as to what you thought were the biggest differences between them? Thx

Had a tube amp and a tube blew and the amp was kaput for a bit, sent it back, got it repaired, and has worked as good as ever, give or take a little tube age, so on my experience, a blown tube can blow an amp, but also not necessarily so.

Jab-I think I would have to disagree with you on that point
as a bad tube can bring down a amp if the design is not there to protect other components that maybe involved;if a tube shorts biasing resistors and/or caps may burn as well as tube sockets;level of damage can be a simple resistor to as melted area on the circuit board or tube socket.

Friend of mine who has a Audio Research amp sent it in to be fixed.
His amp is from the early 80s. It cost too much to get fixed so he asked them to please send it back.
Much to his surprise when his amp returned from ARC all of the parts that needed to be replaced were send along free of charge.
Good on them.

I agree I have had many different brands of tube amps as well. If the amp is designed properly a tube should not take out circuits. Good designs are VTL, CAT, VAC. The bad design was Conrad Johnson.

Audio Research guarrantees their tubes for a time period so if they take out an amp, they should repair it, and obviously do.
Regarding a tube taking out the resistors and some circuit traces, Audio Research feels, I think, that there are compromises inherent in designs which protect the amp in the event of tube failure. It would obviously be easier on them the design amps that way, fewer repairs, but they are a perfectionist company and strive to have no shortcuts to sound quality. I am not saying that other companies are taking shortcuts, just a different approach.

It seems some are missing the original point of the post. The amp owner is giving praise for great product support from the mfg. This stuff is electronics and yes "sh** happens". With all the bagging that we've seen on this site in regards to bad product support, it seems the mfg. did a good job of keeping a customer happy. Praise is certainly in order.
-John

I have to say that my experience with cj amps is exactly the opposite of Jwm's. I've owned cj amps for over 20 yrs, beginning with the MV75A1 and currently the LP 150 Ms. The amps have been like battleships and have never once had a bad or old tube take out the amplifier.

Once I had a resistor go in a 8 yo MV75A1 and the amp had to go back. That would have held true whether the amp was ss or tube in this case.

Jab,
Bad tubes in certain conditions CAN damage the circuitry around if mistake had been made in supply resistor values that in fact should also act like fuses. The supply resistor should blow before the DC cap. After the DC cap blows the rest of the circuitry has 'no insurance' whatsoever.

As far as I've heard on few of their latest models the value of the grid resistor had been 10x the value should be so if the amp had been fixed it's not guaranteed that the next bad tube wouldn't blow it. For the reference I'd recommend comparing circuitry of predecessors that have similar design and values. ARC has circuit diagrams for almost all their products that they could fax or e-mail to you for no charge.

The positive side of this discussion that author Terry feels excited and optimistic compared to me...

This is a positive shout out, think of it this way. The cost of the fix may have been equal to the profit they make on some of their stuff.

I know there are plenty of bad stories out there but overall I have had good luck with high end audio equipment. I have had good luck with cars as well but I can't say the same regarding video equipment, expensive household appliances or a lot of technology items. Computers, what a pain in the ass (Windows based of course).

BTW My Ref 2 phono and Ref 5 are new enough that I have not sent in the registration yet so I don't think they knew I was recent customer.

One thing that makes Audiogon valuable is to hear the good and the bad.
Terry

That's great, Terry. Thanks for sharing your ARC experience.

"I have to say that my experience with cj amps is exactly the opposite of Jwm's. I've owned cj amps for over 20 yrs, beginning with the MV75A1 and currently the LP 150 Ms. The amps have been like battleships and have never once had a bad or old tube take out the amplifier".

I previously owned the Premier 8A for over 5 years, and 3 CJ preamps. I have also had similar experiences. The 8A's were certainly built like battleships. Never a problem w/ the CJ gear for me.

The more reason to pick a quality manufacturer. I have email Krell for help on a amplifier and no response. Writing is on the wall there in my book, hunting for AR's as we speak.

I am happy that you had no problems with your CJ. I am just stating the facts. I received the new CJ's and right out of the box I had a failure. I am just stating that their protection is not great if you do have a problem. I had to send the amp back and did not get it back for one month. Several parts on the board were fried. The other amps I mentioned did not take out any parts when a tube failed.

I never had problems with Krell's service when dealing with Patrick. He always reply promptly whether it was an email or phone.

I had 3 different Krell amps and never a problem but cd player was another story.

In a year, multiple trips for repairs and 4 replacement units, finally I got an unit to work long enough where I can sell it. The problem is the Philip transport and it's a known problem. I guess priority is performance and not reliability.