Audio Refinement Complete owners: please advise

Thanks for all the suggestions... too late to follow advice to buy speakers first, unfortunately. All of the copies of "high end audio bible for dummies who are not rich" were checked out of my local library. But I will pursue these leads.

Viridian,
Are you using the studio 20 v3? Those are a little more efficient than the v1 or 2.

S7, no version 1. The amp tends to congeal at rather moderate levels, I should give you more specifics, but I will not be home to take out my sound level meter tonight. Sounds fine on small jazz and folk and female vocal, OK on moderate progrock like Steely Dan. Useless on rock like Ten Years After, Hendrix, or Led Zep. Leave your Clash records at home. YMMV

I had an ARC as a back up to my back up amp. This was not to say that I did not use it, but rather I made the decision to simply my life. I actually set it up as a second system with Penaudio Charisma/Chara (87 db 4ohm load) in our family room/kitchen. It handled anything I threw at it. So my recommedation is to find 1-2 pair of speakers that YOU like and then see if they still souund good with the ARC in your room. I found that the amp mates best with a speaker that you may think is too good for a $1000 integrated. Your wires will make a difference too. Analysis Plus and Audience worked the best for me. Hope that this is not too much of a non-answer.

I use one in my second system, always with JMLab speakers. The speakers are currently Electra 907BE. As long as the speakers you are using are efficient, the ARC will work well.