Is Audio Research Corp alive and well?

I live only 5 minutes from ARC and have repeatedly gotten excellent service just as a walk-in customer. Each time I have needed a manual or parts kit, they are always right there to help me. When I took my VT130 in for service they had put it in a new box as the original box was starting to show its age....and they charged me nothing.

I just bought an older pair of Classic 150 amps that only had single-ended inputs. I called ARC, got Leonard on the phone, who said he would put a package of parts and paperwork together for me to convert the amps to balanced. And sure enough, everything was there for me the next morning. You can't beat that kind of service....and I was not a customer of a new product....and it was a $50 sale! So this tells me a lot about ARC. Contrary to other people and their unfortunate dealings with ARC, I have had just the opposite experiences.

We all have our favorite products from our favorite audio companies. Even then a product or 2 comes a long from that company that we do not really care for....and ARC is no different here. But ARC customer service has never been in question for me. Perhaps your dealer could not get ahold of the ARC staff due to the holiday. Give them a try next week. I am sure you will be satisfied.

John

thanks for the reassurance.

Try Calling them yourself! They were great when I called & walked me through tube biasing on the phone for over 15 minutes. Plus they faxed me the manuals for the vintage pieces I bought . WOW ! And of course their equiptment sounds great !

I am a huge ARC fan and owner. And although all the above may be true, I think that ARC is in some serious trouble. They've decided not to participate in home theater(I'm not a home theater guy, however HT is driving the industry, I would say (at least)75% of all audio(video) sales are HT related. Also, they really missed out on developing the replacement of the very popular CD-2(CD-3 has just been released). Bad bussiness decisions have really hurt this legendary company. If they don't make better business decisions, they will not be around for very long. If this is true it will be a sad day indeed.

You better find a new dealer this one must be so bad that ARC wont take his calls. ARC is as solid as they come.