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Submitted By: HansVR

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Joined: Oct 12 2006

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ARC Ref 1

Posted: February 26, 2007 - 12:01pm

Hello,

I have an opportunity to buy a 2nd hand Audio Research Reference One tube amp (with new tubes). It would replace my old & trusty Quad 34 but the Quad 909 would stay for a while. Anyone experience with this amp? Would the 2 work well together?

Submitted By: HansVR

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Joined: Oct 12 2006

Posts:

Re: ARC Ref 1

Posted: February 28, 2007 - 2:37pm

Nobody with an ARC Ref One here?

Submitted By: greenelec

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Joined: Feb 10 2006

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Re: ARC Ref 1

Posted: March 3, 2007 - 12:56am

I use ARC electronics and I think it is some of the best equipment out there. The Reference series is the best of the best IMHO. I'm sure this would be big bucks, so you should be able to get a tryout period. I don't think you will be disappointed. One thing though, are the new tubes from ARC? They need to be matched sets to sound right, and I don't trust anyone but ARC to match tubes for their equip. And to confirm they are the right tubes.

If they are new tubes they need some burn-in time to reach their potential. I bought a used ARC preamp and sent it to ARC before I got used to it and they found it had one blown resistor and one wrong tube installed. They fixed it up and it sounds great. Well worth the cost of shipping. They charged me for the tubes they had to replace, but fixed the resistor for free. Way cool support for a used piece of equip.
Good Luck
Jim