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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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In Reply to: Knew a guy who owned a Cary 300B posted by unclestu on April 18, 2015 at 13:54:42:
with the same kind of happy history. But I think the op was asking about the AI M3 which has a different history. Evidently there are exceptions but my experience with this preamp is that tube life is an issue. So much so that there seems to be consensus that only one brand of current production tube (Sovtek/EH) will survive for a reasonable length of time in an M3. In most cases NOS is "proceed at your own risk" due to their soaring cost.I've read various explanations for this problem (running the tubes too hard etc.) but I've come to believe that tube life is shortened, in this case, because the heaters (only) are being left on (fully-powered) for extended periods. This can and (IME) does cause the tubes to become noisy (not talking about micro-phonic here) and un-usable for audio purposes. This process is called cathode poisoning.
Obviously the manufacturer doesn't agree that there is a problem because the preamp has remained unchanged in this regard for years. I'm certainly no expert on this subject but have done a fair amount of research and my practice now with my M3a is to unplug it when not being used for more than a few hours. Not ideal but it seems to work.
Edits: 04/19/15
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- I have a cd player... - rwiley 17:18:39 04/18/15 (0)
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