@cey , well, it took Jim a lot longer to get a batch of 12 together than it did Uncle Kevin, and once Jim took payment he would email me ever so often to let me know what stage he was in in the process of burning them in & testing. Which is not to say that Uncle Kevin didn't have hordes of tubes burned in & tested with their numbers already established to choose from. And, I did run those reissues from Uncle Kevin a lot harder than I run the tubes I bought from Jim (just the mood swing period I was in & presently am in).
Audio Research - should I replace the valves?
I have a AR Ref 110 power amp and AR Ref 3 preamp. Both have done about 3,800 hours. They both work but I wonder if should be replacing the valves.
How can you tell if they’ve had it? Does the sound quality deteriorate & what happens if you don’t replace them?
i don’t think they sounds as good as they did but no pops or whistles or any other strange noises etc - just a bit flat sounding. But perhaps this is just my ears?
pp
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OP. As you are in the UK, Watford Valves have a good stock of 6550s for your power amp. It looks like Tubeamp doctor in Germany has 6H30s - for your pre and driver valves in your power amps. The latter are not massively common and are Russian, so harder to come by and likely to get even harder to come by over time. |
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- 29 posts total