Kudos to Audio Research

It seems some are missing the original point of the post. The amp owner is giving praise for great product support from the mfg. This stuff is electronics and yes "sh** happens". With all the bagging that we've seen on this site in regards to bad product support, it seems the mfg. did a good job of keeping a customer happy. Praise is certainly in order.
-John

I have to say that my experience with cj amps is exactly the opposite of Jwm's. I've owned cj amps for over 20 yrs, beginning with the MV75A1 and currently the LP 150 Ms. The amps have been like battleships and have never once had a bad or old tube take out the amplifier.

Once I had a resistor go in a 8 yo MV75A1 and the amp had to go back. That would have held true whether the amp was ss or tube in this case.

Jab,
Bad tubes in certain conditions CAN damage the circuitry around if mistake had been made in supply resistor values that in fact should also act like fuses. The supply resistor should blow before the DC cap. After the DC cap blows the rest of the circuitry has 'no insurance' whatsoever.

As far as I've heard on few of their latest models the value of the grid resistor had been 10x the value should be so if the amp had been fixed it's not guaranteed that the next bad tube wouldn't blow it. For the reference I'd recommend comparing circuitry of predecessors that have similar design and values. ARC has circuit diagrams for almost all their products that they could fax or e-mail to you for no charge.

The positive side of this discussion that author Terry feels excited and optimistic compared to me...

This is a positive shout out, think of it this way. The cost of the fix may have been equal to the profit they make on some of their stuff.

I know there are plenty of bad stories out there but overall I have had good luck with high end audio equipment. I have had good luck with cars as well but I can't say the same regarding video equipment, expensive household appliances or a lot of technology items. Computers, what a pain in the ass (Windows based of course).

BTW My Ref 2 phono and Ref 5 are new enough that I have not sent in the registration yet so I don't think they knew I was recent customer.

One thing that makes Audiogon valuable is to hear the good and the bad.
Terry

That's great, Terry. Thanks for sharing your ARC experience.