Buy tubes from Audio Research or not

I've been in this hobby for 30 years and Mr. Deal is the worst in the business. Audiophiles (at least some) like to be talked down to. That's why the a**hole has stayed in business. Call Andy at Vintage tube services or do the ARC route. Mr. Deal used to wouldn't even sell tubes to people unless they had bought gear from him. I guess he didn't want to deal with people who had some sense. He probably figured that if they had bought from him before that he had a chance of sticking it to them over and over again and again. I used to couldn't understand why people(audiophiles) would buy from such chacters like Mr. Deal or Mr.Welborne. As you can see most people have caught on to the likes of Mr. Welborne. Maybe the economy will weed out people like Mr. Deal.Let's hope so.

"In Reply to: RE: Upscale Audio no longer retubing ARC VT 100??? posted by cruzmsl on May 15, 2008 at 20:31:36"

Note the date! Then why such a bad attitude towards Taters a year later? Mr. Deal sure doesn't come across like this on the phone. My personal expierence with Mr.D is that he is very rude on the phone. Mr.Deal should send Taters an apology as well. Tater please let us know if you recieve an apology.

Jea48, I agree with your last post. Taters could have gotten a little nasty as well but, for K.Deal to hang up on him.

I wasn't aware of K. Deal's statement on his website about ARC retubing until you pointed it out. That makes me feel a little better but still no excuse for being rude to a potential life long customer.

I'm in business myself and the customer is 99 & 3/4% always right. We sell maintience supplies to industry and with the economy like it is we're feeling the crunch. We can't afford to be pissing off customers. In our business, the customers buy from us every month. We're practically married to our customers. Does it get annoying? Yes, but we bite our tongues and keep counting those sales!

As far as 200-300 phone calls a day! Come on. I would be willing to bet a month's salary against that. We have 25 salespeople covering the state of NC with monthly sales in the 750,000 to 1,000,000 range and we don't have that kind of phone calls. LOL! If Mr. Deal is that busy then no wander the rest of the high end business is slow. Mr. Deal has it all wrapped up LOL!