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Re: ARC - Bad circuit designs that eat tubes?

First, I would echo the sentiments of others to the effect that it is unfair to repeat such negative comments while declining to mention the source. ARC is an historically important company to those of us who love tube gear and ought to get a fair shake. Having said all that I will add that in the "good old days" (i.e., the 1970s, when ARC was pioneering this movement) there were some ARC products, e.g., the Dual 50 and all its many iterations (from Dual 50A to 50F1B!) that were quite unreliable. This unreliability was due to a variety of causes, but might have been related to excessively high plate voltages. (I remember that zeners used to blow regularly on my Dual 50B.) Anyway, we are talking 25 to 30 years ago, and the darn amp sounded wonderful when it was working. This is hardly justification for condemnation of the current ARC line. I never heard of any such problem with ARC pre-amps. By the way, use of high voltage and low current on a 6DJ8, provided one does not exceed the recommended max plate voltage, should not shorten the tube life, if max plate dissipation (current X voltage) is not exceeded. It might make the circuit sound bad, though.


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