Audio Research Classic 150

Sorry to revive an old thread... but I have to go out on a limb, as I own a pair, and to be honest, I'm in love. I have them on a Magnepan 20.1 system and they are fun to listen to. I think they do a fairly credible job of driving the 20.1 (i sold my 3.6 Magnepans before these arrived). They're sweet and very musically satisfying. Bear in mind that my room is small, but _in my room_, they sound terrific. There's something about Triode (or pseudo-triode, if you must) that is kind of awesome. (I have VTL MB-450 and MB-300s and love them).

The classic 150 seems to have lots of bass -for a triode amp-.

The tube saver circuit is something of a party killer, but I haven't tripped mine in a while.

One of mine had a problem once, it was a $1.50 part and ARC did a sweet job fixing it and getting me going again. Their service is a class operation! (thanks Kalvin and the gang!). It was a total of two hundred dollars, maybe less. I'm kind of a cheapskate, and i didn't mind paying. I think mine were made in 1988... That was twenty five years ago. They're entitled to a hiccup now and then. I'm keeping them.

Actually the amps in triode lowered the noise floor considerably.

Not sure about the smaller transformers, our audio club has m300s running in Triode, but I cannot see a physical difference between them.

HiFiGeek1, I know what your qualifications are and I respect you and your words and opinions completely, and I don't want to get in an argument with you...
But ARC techs tell me that the transformers are exactly the same. I live in Minneapolis, and we have really good access to ARC people.

I do, as I mentioned, respect you and your word(s) completely, and your experience. Just saying what they said to me.

You're right, they're hybrid amps. The low noise of the Fet gain stage makes them very quiet amplifiers, the noise floor is super low. In my local area, Minneapolis, they're considered one of the best kept secrets of the audio world, actually... but I have my pair, and I don't mind if the price increases. there really isn't any noise in them, they just have a tube output stage... the combination of the two sounds really good! To say that they sound like a tube amp without tube noise would be accurate, because they are, but many tube amps have little to no noise in the gain stage (this is why we replace the stock Sovteks in an amp's gain stage with NOS tubes, or a quality new production tube, or at least use the Sovteks as followers, where they do no harm to the signal...)

It's interesting that, in this particular iteration, ARC decided to go the opposite way of most amp manufacturers and make the GAIN stage FET and the OUTPUT stage tube... Usually its the other way around.

ARC tried putting the tubes in the gain stage and FETs in the output stage in its "Hybrid Drive" amplifier... And I have seen several examples sold as-is, needing repair... and several others, freshly repaired, up for sale. The amount of those on the used market, and the underwhelming prices they sell for, as well as the reviews I've read, as well as the relatively short production run of that product, indicates that it might not be a successful product... But as always, YMMV.

Which onetook out your tweeter, EBM- the Classic 150 or the HD-220 Hybrid Drive?