ARC price increase effective mid-March '24

[GSOphile]

Originally Posted by vintage_tube

Practically across the board a 25% increase: Here's a snapshot of some prices:

Model Current New Retail
REF10/REF Phono 10 $35,000 $45,000
REF6SE/REF Phono 3SE $19,500 $24,000
LS28SE/PH9/DAC9 $10,000 $12,500
REF160M – pair $38,000 $48,000
REF160S $24,000 $30,000
REFSOS $16,000 $20,000
VT8OSE $11,000 $12,000
450 $5,500 $6,900
50 with DAC & Phono $7,200 $8,650
REF750SEL – pair $85,000 $85,000

Bob

According to ARC's Dave Gordon on another forum, the price increases will be effective March 31 and will average 16.8%.

[lem321]

According to Dave Gordon, these are the revised(?) price increases effective March 31, 2024:

REF10/REF Phono 10 $35,000 / $42,000
REF6SE/REF Phono 3SE $19,500 / $22,500
LS28SE/PH9/DAC9 $10,000 / $12,000
REF160M – pair $38,000 / $45,000
REF160S $24,000 / $28,000
REFSOS $16,000 / $18,500
VT8OSE $11,000 / $12,000
I/50 $5,500 / $6,500
I/50 with DAC & Phono $7,200 / $8,500
REF750SEL No change

The average increase is 16.8% which sounds a lot better than 25%.

[vintage_tube]

Personally, and inclusively for ARC owners, I hate to see a company founded in the USA & who continue to operate in the USA since 1970-fold, plain and simple.

Dave Gordon and ARC owner, Valerio Cora have recently posted the following concerning their "state of company" here forth. I want to populate this info to quell any current ARC negativity and I contacted Valerio to ask if I could "verbatim" post elsewhere, such as AA. He was very welcoming to the idea.

Here's Dave Gordons:

"Our new owner continues to invest heavily to grow all aspects of our infrastructure, and we are advertising again in multiple publications. I think everyone understands that we–like other manufacturers–have absorbed large increases in our costs including parts, tubes, production, and overhead in the last four years. Our prices do not reflect those increases, unlike other manufacturers. Our past reluctance to raise prices appropriately was ill-advised because pricing must inevitably increase in order to keep the business healthy.

Since last year we brought back experienced and valuable employees, all of whom wanted to return. We didn't lose anyone except Brandon Lauer in International sales, who survived a serious motorcycle accident in October 2022, and is now the Director of Sales and Marketing for Wadax. It's a good place for him, and he came by earlier this week to visit and catch-up.

The best and worst part of running Audio Research is that we continue to do it the old-fashioned (and best) way. We still build every component by hand. We solder those resistors and capacitors and wires into the circuit boards by hand because it sounds better. We can service most of the products we have ever made because it is the only way to maintain the value of those generations of products. Maintaining an inventory of legacy parts is expensive. We grade every transistor (with a high reject rate) as we burn-in and grade every tube, because it is the only way to assure consistency. After two rounds of testing that sandwich 24-48 hours of burn-in, we listen to every new and every service piece in a reference system because we can still hear things we cannot measure.

The Reference amplifier shown two years ago in Munich was a dream, a design on paper, a shell with tubes. What we will have in Munich this year has tubes, but virtually nothing else in common except the size of that chassis. It is a total rethink, and its performance is off the charts. And yes, we will have less expensive entry-level products before long.

I apologize for the length of this post, but you should know where we are and where we are going. I have been delinquent staying in the loop on WBF because we are busy, in a good way."

Here's Valerio Cora's:

"Hello Everyone

First and foremost, thank you to all the ARC and ACORA supporters, it is really great how the audio community has come together and given us support and well wishes. Both companies have received wonderful support from our many fans as well as others manufacturers.

I do not intend for either brand to show exclusively or be married to one another, that is very short-sighted and does not benefit either company. My personal system is and has been ARC for years, but I have and still do use many other brands. For the record, our flagship VRC's have been shown with ARC (CAF , Pacific Audio Fest), VAC (Florida, Axpona, SWAF), D’Agostino (Toronto), and Boulder (The Show). Other models have been shown with multiple other brands as well.

ARC has been shown with many brands over the last year or so including Wison, Bending Wave, Falcon Acoustics, Rhythm Acoustics, and so on. Many of our pairings are planned well in advance and Acora and ARC will continue to honour our valued partners at all these events. We support our local dealers and the particular pairings that they find are best suited for them: as a huge benefit I get to learn from these combinations and expand my reference points of what is truly end-game.

On the note of R&D and new products for both companies. The future is very bright, all that I will say at this point is that we have many products in development at both companies. Very strong audiophile driven engineering departments have been assembled and new products will flow in due time. New products being released from ARC are not a continuation from previous projects, including the long-awaited amplifier.

Once the flood gates are opened, our new and existing products will remove any doubts, solidifying ARC"s and Acora’s positions as premiere audiophile products in the world.”

Best to them,

Bob

[vintage_tube]

Finally, Dave Gordon mentioned, from what I can read thru the lines, a new 330M will be unveiled in Munich (??).

"The 320M shown in 2022 was a dream, not a reality, merely a shell. The forthcoming 330M is a dramatically different design with significantly more power, and performance that is a major advancement.

New ownership has brought in additional engineering that is deeply experienced in vacuum tube engineering. We have kept (or brought back) everyone else."

Bob

[Charles]

I recently sent this to a good friend of mine, "It may very well be that the company that has acquired ARC desires to make them into a company that is competitive with VAC and all the other really high-end tube amplifier companies. In other words, place ARC at the very top. If this be true, it makes great sense to produce the 330 mono first and to make it the very best amp ARC knows how to produce. I would absolutely review the new 330 mono. ARC is a great American company that has many loyal customers of all ages. Hopefully they will in the next few years create an entire new line of products that will be totally competitive with McIntosh, VAC, CJ, etc. If I were you, I would help them any way that I could. There is nothing wrong with this. Just review the amp and tell it like it is. But the price is irrelevant if the new company desires to make ARC a high-end show piece. I hope this is the case."

Best

Charles