Love the sound of ARC amps, anxious about at least annual retubing costs

[soundslikemusic]

has the cost of re-tubing come down already?
www.thetubestore.com - Tung-Sol KT120 Audio Tubes
$54 x 8 = $432.00
Is it safe to get the KT120 from tubestore ?

Thanks

[2fastdriving]

I'm sure it is, but arc recommended upscale audio to me for KT150s.

[Steady339]

Originally Posted by TMcD

The thing you have to remember with the ARC tube amps is they only need to be on when you are listening, within a few minutes they sound fine and within 15 or 20 minutes are 100%. Assuming you are listening for three hours a day the tubes well over two years.
I just replaced the tubes in my Ref 110 with K120s from ARC and it was $800 which is expensive, but they should last me over three years, so if I cost average it that is not bad.
I went from a good solid state amp to the ARC amp and would not go back.
Good luck, Tim

BillK, I agree with the above, just switch the amps off when not in use--do this especially to SAVE THOSE POWER TUBES!

Roger

[hhiggins]

Surprised arc would recommend upscale audio for tubes given Kevin's hostility towards arc power amps. They "used" to refuse to sell 6550's for arc vt100's etc claiming they were driven overly hard in the design (or got too many returns (?)) My experience with buying non-arc tubes has been less than successful, as the range of bias adjustment isn't enough to cover all the "variant's" of a given power tube. You maybe able to find decent matched tubes, but without knowing the "sweet spot" of tube values the amp can be successfully be biased its easy to get tubes that can't be adjusted to correct bias figure.ARC knows exactly what parameters the amp is looking for & sells just those that are an optimum match. Tubestore has perfect pair matching system, but hard to know which number to go with that will be with-in the biasing range of your amp...

[BillK]

Originally Posted by Steady339

BillK, I agree with the above, just switch the amps off when not in use--do this especially to SAVE THOSE POWER TUBES! Roger

I could never do that; I love having music on ALL THE TIME and can tell when it's an inferior "background" system.

[Steady339]

BillK, I would suggest you get a low-powered tube amp for background listening. It would not be very expensive to replace power tubes in a good EL34 or EL84 based amp--yet you could still get that great tube tone!

Roger

[Mercury3]

Originally Posted by BillK

Unfortunately, I've never heard a Class D amp I liked, including the new ARC amps.

I actually prefer the sound of my present ML 334 to the DS series.

On the other hand, I wonder if a compromise might be to pair my or another SS amp with an LS17; I'd still need to retube every year or two but preamplifier tubes tend to last more like 10,000 hours.

+1 on the classe D amps but admittedly I've only heard a few of them. What I've found out though is they seem to work very well on subwoofers.

I replaced my subwoofer amp which was Classe Audio CA-400 with w4ysound SX-1000 Mono blocks and those little things provide surprisingly good bass. No longer do I have to lift 115 lb amps around.

[Mercury3]

Originally Posted by 2fastdriving

I'm sure it is, but arc recommended upscale audio to me for KT150s.

I use Upscale Audio for my KT120's too. I dunno about tubestore

[Mercury3]

Originally Posted by hhiggins

Surprised arc would recommend upscale audio for tubes given Kevin's hostility towards arc power amps. They "used" to refuse to sell 6550's for arc vt100's etc claiming they were driven overly hard in the design (or got too many returns (?)) My experience with buying non-arc tubes has been less than successful, as the range of bias adjustment isn't enough to cover all the "variant's" of a given power tube. You maybe able to find decent matched tubes, but without knowing the "sweet spot" of tube values the amp can be successfully be biased its easy to get tubes that can't be adjusted to correct bias figure.ARC knows exactly what parameters the amp is looking for & sells just those that are an optimum match. Tubestore has perfect pair matching system, but hard to know which number to go with that will be with-in the biasing range of your amp...

I dunno years ago my first tube amp was an Audio Research Clasic 60 I bought new (actually it was the demo model at the store here in Denver) and a tube went out right away soon as I got it home. Sadly it took out that resistor too.

They fixed it for me but not long later another tube failed to light up. Little longer another tube failed to light up.

At any rate I replaced those 6550's from I forget where it was so long ago but I never had a failure nor any trouble setting the bias. I had that amp for like 20 years and never ordered tubes from ARC and never had anymore tube problems with it at all. The only trouble I had was their own tubes. I did buy the demo model but normally they don't sell those with a lot of hours on them.

Replaced my reference 110 with upscale audio KT120 and seems to run well with them although that wasn't long ago. I'm thinking of letting that amp go as I'm in love with my new Pass Labs XA-30.8

[MPS]

VT200mkII 16 pcs 6550 and 6 pcs 6H30 for about 1000€ from local component dealer. I do bias adjustment myself and regular checks. Had couple of failures over the years and needed change resistors too but I have few plastic bags of them readily available, most work is to unscrew all 30 screws really