Aesthetix Calypso VS ARC Reference 3

Ckoffend - Before you spend another $500+ on a pair of Mullard 12ax7 10M's, you might just want to try a pair of Sylvania 5751 triple mica black plate. They run around $60-80 a pair regularly on ebay. You might be pleasantly shocked. Once I heard these, I have not bought another 12ax7 pair and I went through a bunch. As for the 6922 socket, the Valvo or Amperex PQ pinched waist tubes are smooth smooth vs. the Philips and Tele that I used before in the Aesthetix, CAT and Aria gear.

Jafox, Thanks for the recs. I actually have a pair of both the Valvo and the Amperex PQ pinched waste tubes and like them both. After the previous comments, I went back and looked at my tube box. But I honestly don't see as big of an impact with the 6922s as the 12AX7 tubes - which are immediately noticeable without any careful listening in terms of the extend of the affect/changes they have.

I will take your advise though the on the Sylvania when I get around to finding some. Thanks for your comments.

How long typically do the tubes last in the Calypso? 2000 hours? or 4000? or 10000 (like what the 10M claims?)?

by the way, Ckoffend, you just out bid me on a 10M a few days ago on ebay.

cheers,

KC

KC - I can't honestly say how long the tubes last. I have only owned my unit for a couple of months and much of that time it has ended up with a variety of tubes in it. I would suspect that at this point, if I had a pair of tubes with 250 hours on them I would be surprised. As for outbidding you on EBay the other day, I was surprised I won that auction. Most of the time I only bid in the final 15 seconds. I was tired that night and bid hours in advance and probably paid more as a result. But I have now bought 3 pairs of these as I want to have two pair for back-ups as I suspect I will keep this preamp for quite a while.

Ckoffend,

FYI, I was discussing with Aesthetix regarding HT bypass a long time ago, and I vaguely remember it was 2k-4k hours (stock tubes)
. I think it is crazy to burn $600 worth of tubes on a tube-preamp when watching movies.

I'm just curious if the 10M will last 10k hours.

Currently I'm using Telefunken/Fishers R-plate for now; it looks like I can't afford the 10M ...the last pair were sold at $270 yesterday.

The 5751, as Jafox suggested, for some reason, went up to $225 on ebay yesterday.

I got some Ediswan for the 6922 position as per the recommendation of another A'goner, but I haven't tried them yet.

BTW did you play with the gain settings?

I find that the Calypso won't sing if coupled with a tough load (in my case, singled ended connection to Ayre V3).

Calypso is also quite sensitive to the powercord.

Happy listening.

K