ARC Support

ARC Service in my many years of experience has been truly exceptional ! They have gone the extra mile for me. Parts are supported to the last screw. In contrast: When I called Classe about a possible replacement faceplate on a power amp, I use in a second system, they responded that they no longer stock the faceplates. Age of the Classe? <4 years! An unrelated but still important issue: ARC still has living wages for their employees and just don't design a piece and send it to China, or some other low labor/environmental standard country, to have it built in sweat shops. My experience with Leonard has always been like a diamond in the rough. Fantastic! The company is not very big and must provide protection for itself or become just another to become owned by another mass market Japanese company like Madrigal and McIntosh.

PS: Turnaround on ARC repairs in my experience and that of everyone I know (large Audio Research community where I live) has never been more than 3 weeks and on average about 2-6 business days (not including shipping time). When you have only been around making products for less time than it takes a child to finish the 6th grade (BAT included) you simply do not have as much out there to repair or if your equipment is as old as Audio Research's inception (1970) your equipment is not repairable due to lack of parts support (ARC is like a White Knight in customer support compared to the large percentage Home Theatre throw away electronic products that are not worth 20 percent of their original value 6-8 years from date of manufacture)or the company has gone belly up or been bought up. Included in this list are companies that made excellent performing products like Threshold, Coda, Kinergenics etc etc etc. ARC stands for lasting value in the face of landfill "home theatre" foder. Another case in point, my Rotel RHT-10's (their best tuner they made and one of the best period) remote, cosmetic pieces (like the case and face plate) are not available. So to those that spent $1500 on a NEW Rotel RHT-10 Tuner in 1993-1995 (dates of manufacture) give Rotel a call and ask about these parts. They will likely phrase it like they told me "we don't stock remotes or face plates and cases for that "old" tuner". That is Pride (?) or in Home Theatre vernacular "Virtual Pride". An upgrade at ARC most of time lets you keep you upgrade your existing equipment where upgrades at many other companies means a new model. There is always an upgrade cost. It, in part, depends how much "consumption of the world's (our) resources" you like to be (upgrade the internal parts) or throw aside heavy exploitative mineralogic costs of those thick faceplates and cases. However, toward environmental responsible purchases I will have to give the praise to Bel Canto for not making "ego" centric thick faceplates and their new Evo Technology being nearly 100% efficient (200 watts to speakers and ~200 watts from the wall). Compare that to Class A designs that are about 10% efficient (200 watts to speakers and ~1800 watts from the wall). Lets just hope that Bel Canto, if they are around in 30 years, will support their products like Audio Research. That will be a real winner for not just the listener but the entire planet.

Opps, made enough grammatic errors in my previous response I felt obligated to clean it up enough so that it was at least readable by most:

PS: Turnaround on ARC repairs in my experience and that of everyone I know (large Audio Research community where I live) has never been more than 3 weeks and on average about 2-6 business days (not including shipping time). When you have only been around making products for less time than it takes a child to finish the 6th grade (BAT included) you simply do not have as much out there to repair or if your equipment is as old as Audio Research's inception (1970) your equipment is not repairable due to lack of parts support (ARC is like a White Knight in customer support compared to the large percentage Home Theatre throw away electronic products that are not worth 20 percent of their original value 6-8 years from date of manufacture)or the company has gone belly up or been bought up. Included in this list are companies that made excellent performing products like Threshold, Coda, Kinergenics etc etc etc. ARC stands for lasting value in the face of landfill "home theatre" foder. Another case in point, my Rotel RHT-10's (Rotel's best tuner they made and one of the best period) remote, cosmetic pieces (like the case and face plate) are not available. So to those that spent $1500 on a NEW Rotel RHT-10 Tuner in 1993-1995 (dates of manufacture) I encourage you to give Rotel a call and ask about these parts. They will likely phrase it like they told me "we don't stock remotes or face plates and cases for that "old" tuner". That is Pride (?) or in Home Theatre vernacular "Virtual Pride". An upgrade at ARC most of time lets you keep your existing equipment case where upgrades at many other companies means a new model. There is always an upgrade cost. It, in part, depends how much "consumption of the world's (our) resources" orientation you like to be (upgrade the internal parts like ARC offers) or double the mineral exploitation costs of making a new 20 - 40 pound faceplate and case. However, toward environmental responsible purchases I will have to give the praise to Bel Canto for not making largely "ego" centric thick faceplates and their new Evo Technology being nearly 100% efficient (200 watts to speakers and ~200 watts from the wall). Compare that to Class A designs that are about 10% efficient (200 watts to speakers and ~1800 watts from the wall). Lets just hope that Bel Canto, if they are around in 30 years, will support their products like Audio Research. That will be a real winner for not just the listener but the entire planet. (hope this is a tad more readable)