Factory upgrade for the ARC REF 250 to 250E?

[lem321]

My ARC REF 250s have close to 1600 hours and I will eventually replace the original KT120 tubes with the KT150 tubes. I have a couple of options: one is to just replace the tubes; the other is to return the monoblocks to ARC and have them do the full upgrade to the latest 250SE with new tubes. The cost difference is about $7K ($9K for the full factory mod v. $2K for just the tubes).

Has anyone sent these back to the factory for this upgrade? How does the sound quality of the 250SE compare to the 250 with KT150's? How about the difference between the stock 250 with KT120 and the 250 with KT150?

Any other thoughts? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[rscotth]

I plan on sending my REF250's back to ARC for the full upgrade. I haven't heard the 250 upgrade, but I did hear the ref75 upgrade and there was a significant boost in bass weight and articulation.

[Ritmo]

I would do the SE upgrade. In addition to the tubes, the amps would be upgraded to the new version of the series. Yes, it is quite a bit of money but if you can afford it, go for it.

[jzeitune]

The KT-120 in my ref 250 had 3,000 hours and I decided to buy the KT-150 (U$ 1,700.00) instead of the SE upgrade. The improvement was much better than I was expecting. The soundstage got wider and more 3D like, I hear more details, the bass has more punch but controlled, overall is more like a live show. It was not just a slight improvement, it was really impressive, it didn't take me more than 10 sec to realise this was the best upgrade I've done.
I haven't had a chance to listen to a ref 250se, so I can't do a comparison between the two, but I hope i will do it soon. If the tube upgrade alone can deliver more than 50% of the SE improvement than I probably did the right thing. If what I'm experiencing now is just a fraction of the SE upgrade, then I would happily do the upgrade because it would really worth it.

[lem321]

Bumping an old thread:

Has anyone done the ARC factory upgrade from the original Ref 250 to the Ref 250SE? Any thoughts?

Thanks.