Audio Research Ref. 210 questions

Power chords will make a significant difference, tubes will make a difference, presumably feet will make a difference as well. . . but. . . until your equipment is fully broken in (at least 500 hours of real playing time) it will change sound quite wildly all by itself. . . if you start fiddling now, you will end up over compensating for temporary artifacts. . . and in the end you'll have to change every little tweak all over again because the amps will just sound. . . darn wrong. Guido

thanks for the reply. The amps were preowned and have been thur the first set of tubes. The current tubes have about 40 hrs so I guess they will need more time too..?

What speakers and pre-amp are you using these with? I would agree with Guidocorona's response.

Mantis007 you just sold your Cary CAD-211 AE's right, what sonic differences are you noticing being apparent right from the get go.

I have interest in the 210's also but I've been on the fence for a year now mainly because I just can't get over the noisy fans. I have heard these in a dealer's situation I can clearly hear the fans and if placed in my set-up I sit aprox 10ft away I would hear them clearly. What bothered me the most when listening to them was that on quiet passages or in between songs I could heard them which is distracting me.

hi Dev, I'm using a BAT VK52-SE pre and Usher BE-20 speakers. I did sell the 211's but had a totally different system at the time. The fans are real easy to replace and I plan on doing that. I have the covers off for now and the fans disconnected. The fan noise bothered me too - it only took about 5 min. and I disconnected them. The amps don't seem to run very hot either - not any more than the Lamm M1.2's I just sold. I'm really curious about power cables because they have made a huge difference with all of the previous amps I've owned. I may just get a 20-15 amp adapter and try my current Ridge Street Audio Alethias Cu PC's.