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In Reply to: Help! My amp eats tubes! posted by vacuous on May 24, 2000 at 03:08:22:
Yep, blue flame, POP!, and there goes another tube. The problem is not in the tubes but in the circuitry needing some repair or adjustment. You might check if the tube that dies is always in the same location within the array of four. (With mine it is.) At least, that's what the people who sold me mine said. When I complained they said it had some noise and they couldn't fix it themselves, but they had sold it to me a little cheap because it needed some low-cost work. I called CJ and they said it was NOT likely to be tubes. They said that basically a tube is a tube -- "to an engineer, a tube is like a light bulb", meaning that audiophiles exaggerate their importance. I haven't sent it to the factory yet because I'm am debating whether to have an upgrade done at the same time. (I'm leaning toward NO, since I like the sound now so leave well enough alone!) There is a guy in Charlottesville VA who offered to work on my CJ -- he seems pretty trustworthy. I will provide name and number if you ask. But you might also send it back to the factory or go to an independent repair shop run by someone over 50. And don't buy any more tubes!!!!!!!! (til you get it fixed.)
Last two tubes did fry in the same socket. Yep, I'm also thinking it's an amp problem, as do other CJ owners posting here. Funny though that most of the dealers/audio professionals who've responded here think it's a tube issue. Who to believe, audio professionals (including CJ) or the people that own CJ amps? I've usually been wrong when arguing with audio professionals ... Though I may regret this, I'm gonna buy the premium quality Sovtek tubes from CJ at $30 apiece. As Duke says in the post below, if the new tubes pop, I'll have the expensive satisfaction of knowing I was right, and CJ was wrong. Also, please tell me about this CJ upgrade you are considering... I know the MV50 was an early design ... maybe problems with this amp were resolved in subsequent models (and upgrades).
It's your $$$. Let us know if the new tubes cure the problem, if you would.I was just considering the upgrade to MV-52, which CJ will do for a couple hundred bucks or so (or is my memory deceiving me?) But I really love the way the thing sounds when it is working and I don't want tighter bass, crisper highs or whatever if they come at the expense of that lush midrange and what I will call "springy" bass, for lack of a better word. You can hear the difference though cheap speakers and good ones alike. The MV-50 is one of the SWEETEST amps ever made. Amps are like cars. Improvements often come with drawbacks attached. So I may stand pat on mods, but as for the tube problem, mine is headed back to CJ as soon as I can get off my butt.
judging from your description of what the man told you. As I mentioned, they told me the problem was NOT tubes. But the word "they" is deceptive. Maybe the repair guy is overworked. CJ lost their chief tech guy about a year ago or so -- he died. Don't know details. Also, they've bought MacCormack. So maybe they just have a lot on their plate. But given the prestige of the brand, they should make every effort to look out for customers of even their used equipment. Compare Bryston and Krell. Any CJ dealers out there want to comment?
I didn't realize that someone had to be over the age of 50 to be competant to work on Conrad Johnson amps!HUH????
It means you don't want your piercings done by a 50 year old, or your tattooing for that matter. Leave the kiddy crap to the kids. Let someone who knows what music reproduction is all about handle the really important details. SS gear is much more a matter of meters and probes, tubes require experience, patience, and an "ear".I could be wrong (quite often according to the gf), but from what I've seen in my travels, old guys know tubes, young guys talk about tubes.
Its your gear, you decide.
- = B. P. Firlotte - anarkist@bikerider.com = - - = http://www.anarkist.cjb.net/audio = -
It does not mean that people under 50 (or under 20) are not qualified, or that the best people are over 50. I'm sorry if you took it that way, for that's not what I meant. It's like with cars. A lot of tube problems have nothing to do with whether it's a Conrad Johnson or a Fisher or Eico: they're just tube problems that all tube designs may present at one time or another, and all electricians who grew up in the tube era know about them, whereas younger repair persons may or may not have experience working on a tube amp. Of course, if the person works at a high end store that sells a lot of tube products they probably know what they're doing. But I find it interesting that when Panor issued their Dyna Stereo 70 clone, some of the "improvements" they made were viewed as mistakes by some tube-savvy reviewers.
What I had in mind is casual knowledge, the sort you might expect the only repairman (repairperson?)in town to have. People of any age can both appreciate and understand tube technology. I have noticed that among NON-AUDIOPHILES there is a general neglect of tube technology, since it is no longer used in non-hobbiest audio. Similarly, DOS commands can sometimes find a file that would take a lot longer to find using pick and click from a series of menus, but many younger computeers don't know anything about DOS nor do they wish to. Whether their attitude is justified is a separate matter from whether it exists. As for tatoos and piercings, these arts are as old as the world, though there may be some recent innovations that us geezers aren't hip to.
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