[George Prentice]

I am now retired and have recently bought... and for various reasons broke in 3 REF 160s’. I found the first 10 or 20 hours takes the tube brittleness off. But the amp sounds good but uninspired for the first ~120 hours. Then the magic starts to comes in... it becomes really engaging. It flip flops between engaging and not sounding that good... then over say up until ~170 total hours and then it just slowly improves... it becomes completely captivating... I think you will forget all about the other amp. You are in for a real treat soon. While ARC no longer prints the hours to break-in in the manual, it is still 600, some people think longer. Personally I have forgotten all about breakin by 400 hours and don’t pay close enough attention to notice. After all the recording quality and mastering of records plays a huge role in what you hear. I recommend getting through the first 250 as fast as possible by keeping it running all days. Then you can Start enjoying the great amp it is. Life is too short... and getting shorter all the time.

And are you going to will your old amp to someone? If not I’d get rid of it unless you have a streak of Gollum in you and enjoy seeing it. After I retired I realized I had all this stuff taking up space... and no one was enjoying it. So I now trade stuff in and get rid of it... letting someone else enjoy it.