Audio Research i/50

My local brick-and-mortar ARC retailer has one on demo with a phono. Paired with efficient speakers, they are big fans, and big fans of ARC in general. I am told that i/50s are very popular.

The last 3 times I visited, with no other customers in the space, they were playing it for their own enjoyment. They have lots of other options, and they choose to listen to the i/50.

I listened casually and it was very pleasant. I too am a big ARC fan, but I'm not in the market for an integrated, so I didn't listen critically.

If I were in the market for an integrated, an i/50 would be at the top of my list.

The I/50 is an amazing amp. Wonderfully warm and musical. The Zu DW look interesting. Efficient enough. The Lumin streamer, very well respected. It is hard to criticize. 

I should have mentioned in my previous post that I own an ARC Ref 6SE, and that I toured the ARC factory last summer (I live nearby). The i/50s are built by the same folks in the same building as everything else. They were building a lot of them, palettes and palettes marked for shipping all over the world. They even have their own paint booth for them in-house (cerakote I believe). They sweat the details at ARC, the i/50 is no exception.

for the same $$$ you can buy a Mcintosh 252  plus the MC has auto bias.  wonder how they would compare?

The McIntosh 252 doesnt have autobias, it does have tubes in the preamp stage of a solid state integrated amplifier. How would they compare? Two different audiences bult to drive two different kinds of speakers.