Audio Research Reference 5SE reliability


After reading the glowing revieuw on the Stereophile-website by Brian Damkroger on the ARC REF5SE there was a comment that: quote: by Audioware on nov 15, 2012,

"These pres are outstanding. However the problem is their poor reliability. 06 (six) of them were already on my services bench this year to fix problems with the transformer that feeds the dgital, the remote control and the on-off switch, circuits. It is a small xformer below the circuit board that burns out frequently. Another very serious problem is with the 6H30s filament regulators that do not stand for the increased current demanded by the new 6H30s intead of the old 6922s. ARC has to pay more attention to these problems!"

I already checked my dealer, who was really surprised and did not recognise these problems.

Comments will be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
sequence56

Showing 4 responses by sequence56

I suppose Audioware is referring also to ARC Ref5 and Ref3, which are also mentioned in the header of his comments, so it is not clear if the number of six are exclusively all Ref5SE. I also doubt about that.
Hi guys,

Thanks so far. After the initially worrying about ARC caused by Mr Audioware I am going to listen to Ref5SE within the next weeks, in comparison with Krell 202/Phantom. I got already a great deal on a 5SE with a discount of 40% off new-price.
Any thoughts about ARC Ref5SE against Krell 202/Phantom are welcome.

All the best.
As I was instantly floored with the sq of the ARC Ref5SE overall, I bought one. Having now some 35 hours on it and it is already better than just new out of the box.
I have over 10" above the preamp to the woodshelf above. It is a very open construction, so ventilation of heat is no problem, no knobs are getting hot, only the top of the preamp itself just above the biggest tube warms up considerably.