Solid State to replace Audio Research REF110?

There are lots of great reliable tube amps out there. In the past 10 or so years I've had Berning, Atma=sphere, Lectron, RAM, Joule and VAC. I've never had a catastrophic failure. One time, one of the big Russian MIG tubes "ran away" on my Joule which was scary but after shutting it down and replacing the output tube, the amp was unscathed. I must say that some of the ARC amp layouts I've seen w the tubes installed horizontally, and stacked one over the other, seem to me to be "asking" for problems w heat-related failures. As far as a manufacturer that says their amps are not warrantied unless you use their pre-amp, I say fuggedabowdit. I say-let 'em sell integrateds.

Maybe it's just me, but if I had three very expensive amps from the same company require expensive repair as a consequence of an unavoidable and unpredictable aging process (output tube failures, like light bulb failures, are inevitable), I'd think long and hard before I bought another. Especially after reading about how non-user friendly tube replacement and re-biasing can be. Just my $0.02.

There are lots of tube amps that can equal or out-perform ARC amps AND have fused protection for the output tubes. Any output device tube or solid state can fail. A design that results in a major, $$, cascading failure as a result of a reasonably anticipated event, IMO, is not "good" design. Flame away.