BIF---It's great to hear that your newish ARC power amps have been trouble free. Everyone (except Tim Paravicini!) seems to feel the tubes being made now are pretty darn good, with lower rates of arcing and shorting than in the past, which is especially good news for ARC power amp owners. Keith Herron even advises against tube rolling in his products, saying that while old tubes will change the sound, the new tubes (for instance the Sovtek 12AX7 he uses) provide lower distortion in his circuits. And I really like the look of the ARC natural faceplate with silver handles---very elegant and tasteful. They rid ARC's of the laboratory/industrial look black handles give them.
Bill Johnson had his Winter home only a few miles from me, in Indian Wells, the Bel-Air/Brentwood of the California Desert. He had Brooks out to his place to set-up his turntable, and Brooks, the dirty rat, didn't take me with him! Bill and his Audio Research Corp. created not only great sounding products starting in the very early 70's, thereby turning around the whole decline in sound quality that Hi-Fi was going through at the time (early solid state), but also created the market for high performance music systems. We all owe him an enormous debt.
And though HP and his TAS is often credited with introducing ARC to audiophiles, it was actually J. Gordon Holt who did so in Stereophile, reviewing the SP-2 and Dual 50 in 1971, the SP-3 and D-51 & D-75 the following year. High End shops starting popping up all over the country to sell the new gear, Walter Johnson (who now makes the Last record care products) starting his Audio Arts store near me in Livermore California. I'm still trying to recapture the magic of my first big system that I bought from Walt---Tympani's bi-amped with ARC power amps!
Bill Johnson had his Winter home only a few miles from me, in Indian Wells, the Bel-Air/Brentwood of the California Desert. He had Brooks out to his place to set-up his turntable, and Brooks, the dirty rat, didn't take me with him! Bill and his Audio Research Corp. created not only great sounding products starting in the very early 70's, thereby turning around the whole decline in sound quality that Hi-Fi was going through at the time (early solid state), but also created the market for high performance music systems. We all owe him an enormous debt.
And though HP and his TAS is often credited with introducing ARC to audiophiles, it was actually J. Gordon Holt who did so in Stereophile, reviewing the SP-2 and Dual 50 in 1971, the SP-3 and D-51 & D-75 the following year. High End shops starting popping up all over the country to sell the new gear, Walter Johnson (who now makes the Last record care products) starting his Audio Arts store near me in Livermore California. I'm still trying to recapture the magic of my first big system that I bought from Walt---Tympani's bi-amped with ARC power amps!