Need to learn about Audio Research

I bought my ARC gear in the 70s after William Z. Johnson brought the SP-1 preamp and Dual 75 to Milwaukee for an audition. Those days are long gone!  We treated Bill to a prime rib dinner to thank him, and bought the units through Opus-2 stereo store in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time, I had KLH Nine speakers and later Infinity Servo Static -1s (with an ARC Dual 51 bi-amped driving the tweeters). Still have those amps and preamp to this day, along with a double pair of KLH Nines. Great sound all these years later!  ARC amps from that era are still available and serviceable by ARC. 

I just got back from the southwest audiofest-great show by the way- and the ARC Folks did a nice program on the history and future of the company. It was very interesting. ARC featured some brand new solid state products in its room that maybe haven’t even hit the market yet. Affordable pricing on these new products

I had 3.7’s a few years ago. As has been referenced I heard them at the dealers paired with ARC and they sounded great. That was indeed a classic pairing. I bought them but I couldn’t afford the ARC at the time so I went with classe integrated that sounded good but really didn’t have the power needed. I eventually bought a Pass int-250 which sounded lovely and had the necessary power to play these power hungry speakers. That purchase was started with reading I believe absolute sounds best of show review of the 3.7 with pass amps. I called Reno hi-fi which was the big Pass dealer at the time. He steered me to the Int 250 when I couldn’t quite pay for the recommended pass based on the review ( they were 16-18k ) and the 250 was around 10k.  It was a great choice which served me very well.You should get subs which will take the speakers to another level. You don’t mention a budget but you can find used integrated 250s for 4 to 6 grand. 

You may want to also look at Musical Fidelity. They usually offer amps with larger transformers and capacitors. The other idea is mono amps.

If you do a search you can find Mike Fremer's video tour of the ARC factory. With the recent acquisition by Acora little if anything has changed. Dave Gordon can be seen in Fremer's video doing listening-tests of each and every Ref Series amp that leaves the building and he is using.....Magnepans just as ARC has utilized for sound testing for many decades. l

I am a long time ARC owner and fan. I believe that the preamp is the heart and soul of a top tier audio system and few will argue that ARC has built a reputation for building some of the best preamps out there. I fully accept the argument that ARC amps can be a pain and arguably don't sound special but please keep in mind that if you want to guaranty optimum synergy between preamp and amp, you have to think hard about pairing an ARC preamp with an ARC amp. And....the latest series of Ref amps feature self-biasing (finally) and soft-start circuitry (finally!!!) which makes then more reliable than ever. 

Also consider that not all tube preamps and amps are fully balanced from input to output and ARC preamps and amps are in the Ref Series and also keep in mind that all ARC gear continues to be built entirely by hand in the MN factory. 

My biggest criticism of ARC is that they went all-in with the KT150 tube which has not proven to be a reliable tube due to terrible QC at the New Sensor factory. I also join with the others above that ARC charges outrageous amount for matched sets of replacement tubes and for service.  Perhaps that is why they are once again coming out with SS amps.