I agree heartily. While paying for some premium products can get you reliable products that are properly designed this isn't always the case. I repaired an ARC power amp a while ago and was staggered at the inherent design flaws in the product that could lead to instability and literally blow ups of their power amps. A quick Google search demonstrated that major blow ups were all too common in ARC power amps thus underlining the design deficiencies I'd noted. On the other hand I get to repair /upgrade a lot of Audio Innovations amps which were something of a budget product in their day and many of these are still going strong after 30 odd years
Ali Express 'clone' amps...great stuff!!
- Thread starter rontoolsie
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rontoolsie
pfm Member
I have owned/bought from new only a single ARC product. A D70mk2 power amp that I paid 2,000 UKP back in 1984.
Back then 2000 UKP was a shed-load of money.
Eighteen months later if failed quite predicatably. The large filter caps were located within a cm of the red-hot 6550 power tubes, so they cooked and then leaked their electrolytic slurry, which promptly dissolved the PCB, that could not be fixed, only replaced.
ARC said the unit was out of warranty and wanted almost 70% of the purchase price to restore it.
I eventually appealed to their sense of decency (which they actually had back then) and the eventually fixed it gratis.
Until it failed again several years later.
rontoolsie
pfm Member
Well, just looking around at some of the capacitors....the larger ones are Miflex, which are a fairly expensive and a highly acclaimed brand.
Linn/Naim would use some Bennics or generic film caps for 1/10 of the price.
Even the supplied mains fuses cost 10x what a generic Litman fuse would cost. The quality of the RCA jacks and binding posts is also much higher than the average $2000 amp.
I bought a vintage Radioshack receiver years ago. The parts quality was very high. Far better than the NAP250 that I had fitted with Avondale Quattro boards. The original NAP boards used the cheapest of the cheapest of parts and looked like cheap toy next to the AA, or even the Radioshack boards.
rabidlistener
pfm Member
I had a Xindak valve CDP which started to sound rubbish - replaced the valve all good again
rontoolsie
pfm Member
Except mine blew up after 18 months, not 18 years.Do you think if ex. $10,000 ARC's were going to blow up, they would have done it before they were 18 years old? I am hoping so
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First time around, almost certainly. Second, third time around, who knows?Do you think if ex. $10,000 ARC's were going to blow up, they would have done it before they were 18 years old? I am hoping so
I'm the not so proud owner of a Nytech, bought for considerably less than $10,000. I had the receipt from the original buyer and a £200 repair bill 3 years later. I bought it 15+ years on, it broke down, I had it repaired, it worked for a year or two and then a channel went down. It's currently in a box. Some things just like breaking down.
When the one I was repairing blew up I did a quick Google search and the following tales popped up:
[I am interested in ARC because the sound is great intimate and truly beautiful.I am an original owner of PH5, CD3mkII and LS26 and over two years I never had troubles. They all work beautifully
But the few malfunctions I experienced with the amps were different.
My newer VS115 at approx. 165 hours during the warm up period suffered a fairly catastrophic failure.
The V1 tube was glowing with a white colour, a capacitor or perhaps a resistor became overheated and flamed out with blast and smoke.
Luckily the rest of the equipment were not damaged.
After two weeks the local ARC service repaired the unit and I had to pay for the tube.
At approx. 255 hours it happens again. This time I heard only a blast.I returned the unit to the local ARC and I am waiting but I am very disappointed.
(I checked the Bias and the wall voltage every time I heard music)
The same happened 2 years ago to my VS55 I previously owned at approx. 400 hours. At that case ARC had sent me through the local dealer a new circuit board. ]
Most recently, I purchased the ARC 610s and I was stunned when one of the maps blew up within 7 seconds of turning it on. I sent the amp back to ARC, only to find that my other amp blew 2 within 2 weeks while the first amp was being repaired. That was the final straw for me. Unfortunately, I am not alone as this has happened to several others. What I found particularly dumb, is that ARC should have been cognizant of these failures and at the very least, designed their latest amps so the power resistors can be easily accessed for front of board repair. At the very least, they should have raised the resistors high enough off the board so the board does not char when the resistor blows.
Regarding power amps, had a D70 for a year, and then a D125 for 8 years(both second hand) - in both cases they developed faults which the local (Sydney, Australia)technicians could not fix, despite repeated costly attempts. Loved the sound, especially of the D125, but ownership was frustrating - for the last two years the D125 pretty much sat unused, and old Luxman SS amp filled the gap.
I'm afraid I wouldn't buy another ARC power amp.
[ok correct it should be 65mV and the multimeter is not defect, but this is not the point. By "blast" i mean a noisily explosion -- although i was scared i checked the bias and i measured at all tubes 89-90 mV. ]
Years ago, I owned a D-250 Servo. After a few months, with not that many hours on the stock ARC 'selected' tubes, a loud dramatic explosion occurred with smoke, etc. I had to send "Big Bertha" back to Minnesota for repairs. When it returned, I sold it.
Its a common problem for ARC. The same thing happened to my VT-100. When it blew, a piece of the resistor hit me right in the face while sitting in my listening chair.
I had two VT50s over the review period. The first broke in well and everything was progressing nicely until, in the middle of a quiet listening session, one of the bias-control resistors literally blew apart. The bang was quite loud and accompanied by a flash and smoke,
One of the issues with the one I was repairing was that the mains transformer was grossly under-rated for its job of supplying 8 x KT88 tubes. This is exacerbated by the fact it seems to be designed for 60hz not 50hz and it is also rated at 230 so the the circa 250v UK mains is a killer blow.
[I am interested in ARC because the sound is great intimate and truly beautiful.I am an original owner of PH5, CD3mkII and LS26 and over two years I never had troubles. They all work beautifully
But the few malfunctions I experienced with the amps were different.
My newer VS115 at approx. 165 hours during the warm up period suffered a fairly catastrophic failure.
The V1 tube was glowing with a white colour, a capacitor or perhaps a resistor became overheated and flamed out with blast and smoke.
Luckily the rest of the equipment were not damaged.
After two weeks the local ARC service repaired the unit and I had to pay for the tube.
At approx. 255 hours it happens again. This time I heard only a blast.I returned the unit to the local ARC and I am waiting but I am very disappointed.
(I checked the Bias and the wall voltage every time I heard music)
The same happened 2 years ago to my VS55 I previously owned at approx. 400 hours. At that case ARC had sent me through the local dealer a new circuit board. ]
Most recently, I purchased the ARC 610s and I was stunned when one of the maps blew up within 7 seconds of turning it on. I sent the amp back to ARC, only to find that my other amp blew 2 within 2 weeks while the first amp was being repaired. That was the final straw for me. Unfortunately, I am not alone as this has happened to several others. What I found particularly dumb, is that ARC should have been cognizant of these failures and at the very least, designed their latest amps so the power resistors can be easily accessed for front of board repair. At the very least, they should have raised the resistors high enough off the board so the board does not char when the resistor blows.
Regarding power amps, had a D70 for a year, and then a D125 for 8 years(both second hand) - in both cases they developed faults which the local (Sydney, Australia)technicians could not fix, despite repeated costly attempts. Loved the sound, especially of the D125, but ownership was frustrating - for the last two years the D125 pretty much sat unused, and old Luxman SS amp filled the gap.
I'm afraid I wouldn't buy another ARC power amp.
[ok correct it should be 65mV and the multimeter is not defect, but this is not the point. By "blast" i mean a noisily explosion -- although i was scared i checked the bias and i measured at all tubes 89-90 mV. ]
Years ago, I owned a D-250 Servo. After a few months, with not that many hours on the stock ARC 'selected' tubes, a loud dramatic explosion occurred with smoke, etc. I had to send "Big Bertha" back to Minnesota for repairs. When it returned, I sold it.
Its a common problem for ARC. The same thing happened to my VT-100. When it blew, a piece of the resistor hit me right in the face while sitting in my listening chair.
I had two VT50s over the review period. The first broke in well and everything was progressing nicely until, in the middle of a quiet listening session, one of the bias-control resistors literally blew apart. The bang was quite loud and accompanied by a flash and smoke,
One of the issues with the one I was repairing was that the mains transformer was grossly under-rated for its job of supplying 8 x KT88 tubes. This is exacerbated by the fact it seems to be designed for 60hz not 50hz and it is also rated at 230 so the the circa 250v UK mains is a killer blow.
Sounds like the UK mains at 240V and often 250 cooks these valve amps with 220V transformers, as was discussed earlier.
I just looked, they're not even subtle about it. "U-002 Study and Copy Lehmann Headphone Amplifier Power Earphone Can be a Amplifier Pre Amplifier Pre AMP Preamp Pre-amplifier"
artoly
pfm Member
Thanks (I think). I read all the ARC reviews for my models, but probably should have done those searches as well, before buying in December. I'm enjoying them though (preamp with all music time / power amp part time), so I'll just cross my fingers and hope for the best for now. Small solace is that my models don't feature in those quotes, but I don't know if that means anything (Ref3/Ref110). I haven't checked my mains voltage yet, but will now.
Edit: I just rechecked the ARC boxes and they both state 240V on the back, not 220. Hopefully they might have different transformers.
A 240 primary will help you a lot, it will reduce your power consumption and consequent overheating. After that you are just into the fundamental design quality. Keep power resistors off boards, keep big capacitors cool and right way up to prevent leakage, etc.
rontoolsie
pfm Member
Back on topic...
This is just to confirm that a return I made from Ali Express (an $80 silver USB cable, that I had mistakenly ordered the wrong connector) was fully refunded after about two weeks.
I printed off the return shipping lablel and had to pay zero shipping.
The return address was some domestic clearing house in the US.
So, yeah...it takes a little longer to get a return credit from AE than it does from Amazon.
But it does look like the 'free return' policy is honored, and certainly removes one level of worry from the purchase.
This is just to confirm that a return I made from Ali Express (an $80 silver USB cable, that I had mistakenly ordered the wrong connector) was fully refunded after about two weeks.
I printed off the return shipping lablel and had to pay zero shipping.
The return address was some domestic clearing house in the US.
So, yeah...it takes a little longer to get a return credit from AE than it does from Amazon.
But it does look like the 'free return' policy is honored, and certainly removes one level of worry from the purchase.
rontoolsie
pfm Member
One last follow up....following me finally getting my speaker supports correct (after 10 years) my speakers, now driven by the Ali Express amps sound very, VERY good. I hear no subjective weaknesses using these amps. I have spent a little extra on them....$200 for a decent Pangea AC14SE power cord (the AC9-SE is just too massive and would not bend the required radius), some $28 Gustard 8A fuses and about $60 (per amp) in some ceramic bearing supports, which also allow extra clearance under the chassis for cooling (they run fairly warm, as they are 350 watts Class AB). But thse incremental tweaks do not make or break the amplifiers. These are by FAR the best value for money amps I have ever heard/owned. They come very close to my $25k custom tube monoblocks at a minute fraction of the price.
Recently one YouTuber bought a Chinese-made power amp derived from the Dartzeel 108, called the D5Pro that is supposed to be a direct clone of the original Dartzeel. Note that this is not considered intellectual property theft as the Dartzeel amps have been around for long enough that any patents have expired, and are now essentially 'open architecture'. They are not sold with a Dartzeel label either.
He said this was by far the best solid state amplifier he has ever heard. OK...that's his opinion....but he has access to many other power amps.
More impressive is his tear down of the amplifier showing an extremely high build and parts quality. Without knowing the price I would guess that this would be at LEAST a $5k amplifier.
And the price......$648 including shipping AND taxes. About the cost of a couple meters of mid-grade Chord speaker cable.
The chassis alone would probably cost $600+ if it was CNC in the US, or the EU.
It looks like the future of affordable high end equipment is not from your high-street dealer, but factory direct from a Far East megacompany who does OEM for the bulk of the Western world.
Recently one YouTuber bought a Chinese-made power amp derived from the Dartzeel 108, called the D5Pro that is supposed to be a direct clone of the original Dartzeel. Note that this is not considered intellectual property theft as the Dartzeel amps have been around for long enough that any patents have expired, and are now essentially 'open architecture'. They are not sold with a Dartzeel label either.
He said this was by far the best solid state amplifier he has ever heard. OK...that's his opinion....but he has access to many other power amps.
More impressive is his tear down of the amplifier showing an extremely high build and parts quality. Without knowing the price I would guess that this would be at LEAST a $5k amplifier.
And the price......$648 including shipping AND taxes. About the cost of a couple meters of mid-grade Chord speaker cable.
The chassis alone would probably cost $600+ if it was CNC in the US, or the EU.
It looks like the future of affordable high end equipment is not from your high-street dealer, but factory direct from a Far East megacompany who does OEM for the bulk of the Western world.
rontoolsie
pfm Member
Relax..you are only hooking them up to your speakers, not to a defibrillator
notevenclose
pfm Member
Ali bets are off, surely?
I like my speakers.Relax..you are only hooking them up to your speakers, not to a defibrillator
rontoolsie
pfm Member
Fair enough...but see post #89 above. Buying high end amplifiers at top dollar prices through conventional pathways does not make you immune from shrapnel injury when your $15k amp purchased through conventional dealers/ distributors explodes!
I would rather take shrapnel from a $600 amp than a $15,000 one- which is literally adding insult to injury!