Mystery Of Red Plating

I had to wait 8 months to get in line at ARC. I think the repair cost with shipping was $3,000. The Audiogon Blue Book says my VT130 is only worth $3000.  Gee thanks! 

The ARC guy told me since the spamdemic "everybody" was taking their old gear out of mothball and sending it in for refurb- hence the wait. ARC must be making a killing on restoring old gear.

A musician buddy of mine told me to call the music store in at the local mall. They would know of local technicians that worked on tube amps (Fender mostly). 

Lo and behold they were right!  A dude named Matt Garcia had a store front repair shop called Garcia Amplification in old Myrtle Beach SC. He fixed the unit for $300 all in!  What a deal!  Moral of the story: Support your local electronics man.

2 Sylvania NOS 12BH7As $60

2 5K ceramic resistors       $5

Materials and Supplies     $25

Diagnose, test all 14 tubes, replace 3 resistors, 3 tubes, bias L&R, $210

Total cash out the door $300.  It took him a week.  

I found my local guy by calling a reputable music store and asking who the best guy was around here to repair tube amps. They had one favorite and that guy had never worked on an ARC before, but immediately diagnosed the problem as "multiple issues- not just bias"  He was right- a weird resistor failure, a bad voltage controller tube which he had NOS stock at a low price, 2 6550 Sovekteks (I supplied them). He burned it all in while biasing as he went.  $350 and a very short time later I'm listening to a wonderful quiet amp. 

Moral of the story: Great audio repair guys may be guitar amp guys unknown to us hifi gear heads.