Has anyone experienced a system blow up?

[Sharp 1080]

2 examples.
In the first, in the 80's, I used to hang out at a wonderful dealer in Philly called Chestnut Hill audio. Jack Rubinson, the owner, and I became friends so he let me dabble and listen to equipment at will. Once , and I forget the speaker, I hooked up a speaker that had to be driven by 2 separate amps- one for the bass, the other for the mids/tweeter. Both were hooked up to the intrinsic crossover separately. Well, it turned out I reversed polarity of one of the amps and when we threw the switch on the bass amp (a Krell) there were fireworks galore. (I obviously shorted the main rails by somehow tying the positive terminals of each amp to one another through the crossover) I blew the crossover and the amp and had to pay for the repairs with profuse apologies to Jack of course. Somehow, he let me remain a valued customer and friend.

The second example was far more innocent. Some years ago, in my Dallas home, I ordered brand new ARC610 amps. I turned them on in genuine excited anticipation, eager to hear these wonderful beasts. The first one blew immediately. While that one was being shipped back to MN for repair, I decided to listen to the other amp in mono for the interim. The second amp blew after week. And that folks, was the very last time I bought an ARC piece of power amplification. Lesson learned.

Wow that brings back memories, I feel your pain. I had a similar occurrence with ARC Classic 120's. I finally sold them after they were returned from ARC for the second time with blown circuit boards. I also will never purchase another ARC amplifier. Preamp no problem, amps hell no.

 

[DSkip]

Wow that brings back memories, I feel your pain. I had a similar occurrence with ARC Classic 120's. I finally sold them after they were returned from ARC for the second time with blown circuit boards. I also will never purchase another ARC amplifier. Preamp no problem, amps hell no.

Is this a common occurrence with their amps or is it a particular model? I've not seen any references to these issues before, so seeing two in such short order is a little surprising.

 

[jadis]

Well, I guess there's gotta be a little element of luck in these things. In our country, the Classic series as notorious for 'blow ups'. I heard and know a few who had that. The amps run so hot and we're talking about 60 watts or 100 watts, not even 300 watts. Lately they seems to be ok here. 610s and 750s, didn't hear any issues so far. I've used 4 ARCs in the past few decades and only 1 had a problem, a tube failure. Jadis amps, meanwhile, was notorious when HP had them and reported some break downs. And most Jadis amps in the country have had some break downs, me included.

 

[DaveyF]

Many years ago I had a Melos tube amp running GE6550's driving my Acoustat 3M's. Decided to roll in some Chinese KT88's. BIG mistake, after turn on, the right channel KT88 literally exploded in a shower of sparks and flame! That was a real adrenalin rush to the power cord, LOL. Amazingly the amp wasn't damaged, not so sure about my heart