Aesthetix Io-Reliability Problems???

Albert Porter has immense experience with the IO and Callisto. I know he has experimented with many varieties of glass. Hopefully, he will share his wisdom.

I have three different tube sets for each area of Jim White's Aesthetix design. Stock Sovteks of course for everything and they were pretty good. I am doing this from work right now and don't have the exact facts in front of me right now. Please feel free to E-mail me directly if you want the exact specific brand and tube types. So go easy on me if I am misspelling the brand names in the following tidbits. Still going from my memory the preamp section I got NOS Mullard and Mazda special selects. For the PS I got extra Mullard EL34s and then went to Genelex KT-66s. Jim White can customize the pre-amp area to accept two power supplies. Note the standard product has one very hefty separate power 19X22X6 supply. With Jim's mod you then get to add another one just like it for even better power supply reserve, regulation, and lower noise. How much does this really helps - is subject to your interpretation of the final results. Jim is very happy with the standard product, as he has designed. I like the tube changes that I have dove and adding the extra power supply. BTW: Albert Porter was great in helping and suggestion way to change the sound. He really knows the sound of many tubes. Also, Ken at Upscale Audio was extremely helpful on tubes sound characteristic and getting me great NOS tubes. Hope this helps. Also, Jim White was very responsive and treated me very well even when I did a dumb ass thing like having a wrong tube type in the wrong place. Amazing that it worked at all. BTW: do e-mail me, because I want to continue the good practice of assisting others that people like Albert Porter practice on this site.

Gerrym5: It is endlessly refreshing to encounter people like you and Albert Porter (and many others on this site) who are not only dedicated and humble audiophiles, but are genuinely sincere and generous with their long-accumulated knowledege. This is an infrequently-acknowleged aspect of the hobby that gives me (and, I surmise, many others) great pride. While I do not have your skills, I certainly try to reciprocate all the pearls. A heartfelt THANK YOU to all of your ilk!

I just purchased a used Aethetix Io and the previous owner is a super-tweaker. He sets up turntables for various companies around the North East. Anyway, although he replaced the tubes once, according to him, the biggest improvement to the Io was using copper shielding foil on all of the transformers. Although I haven't done the AB myself, I trust his expert opinion on this. I figured that leaving it in place could only make things better. He also upgraded some of the internal wiring to Audio Note silver.

Has anyone compared this unit against the Hovland H-100 preamp and phono stage?
Thanks for any input!