1st Tube amp question

@decooney 

Were you referring to Dennis?  Actually that was not Dennis that I talked to the last time.  That was in the fall of '17 I took that amp out of mothballs & felt the need to call Cary to clarify something, & I think by then, Dennis had already left.

I remember after I bought my first Cary amp in (I think '94), Cary provided great customer tech support (thank you, Kirk Owens, wherever you are), and because of that tech support, I bought 3 other Cray products & had them do upgrades and even also bought tubes from them.

I had sworn Cary off, but recently I couldn't resist a preowned SLP 05 from their site.  Oh well, it probably isn't just Cary; I wouldn't be surprised if that's most of them now-a-days. 

@immatthewj no, after DH left. There were other super capable designers that took over after Dennis. Capable ones too. I was just super disappointed more autonomy and empowerment was not given to a few individuals. The last one was truly helping customers to resolve issues on older amps and eventually helping to guide others to new ones too. Somebody could not see the big picture and value of it from a strategic advantage. We can share more offline. I hope the keep it together. I like my older Cary stuff too. Went in another direction with my amps as a result. 

@decooney 

for sure.  I don't particularly want to trash out people or companies in public, but I don't mind relating the good experiences I have had.  I always thought that DH was great (it blew my mind when I called Cary to clarify something not long after I bought my V12 and I found out I was actually talking to DH himself), and that Kirk Owens (when he was there) was the absolute BEST. 

And, as I typed previously, I repaid that great customer service and tech support with loyalty as a consumer.  And I will say that I really like the preowned preamp that I recently bought from Cary.  It is just too bad that (at the present) if I experience issues with it that I cannot figure out by myself, it will be me sending emails and waiting for replies, or seeking help on an a forum such as this.  (The latter is how I troubleshot & repaired my Cary V12 when it went down about a year ago.)

Back to the OP question.  As others recommended, best to keep all plugged in while breaking it in.  Letting the caps and even new tubes settle in for a bit will give your new amp a chance before drawing hard conclusions on how it sounds. Best of luck.  Patience typically pays off as we've all learned.  Let it play for a while.