2. amps-preamps
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Cayin A88T break in and biasing??

Just took a Jolida 302BRC back to a dealer to
get the A88 instead. I loved the Jolida no doubt,
but assumed the A88 would be a step up, and so far
all I can say is it has the potential but sounds
a little hard & brittle now.
Just wondering if anyone has had experience with it
and does it get better with time?
I need to know before I go drop another 1k on it.
Also...I never could get a handle on whether or
not the amp is self biasing or not?? Most people
say it is not and you have to take it out, flip it over
and bias it....that's crazy and would be a deal breaker
for sure!
Any help or thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

BTW... I only had about 6-7 hours on it when I started
to give it a listen.
telescope_trade

Showing 5 responses by aball

aball
2,018 posts
 
No biasing needed. Changing out the tubes is plug-and-play. This is also why you can switch between triode and ultralinear on the fly - a great feature.

Why put another $1000 of tubes into it? You don't even know what you have yet. Judge it after a couple weeks of continuous play and see what you think of it then. Just relax and enjoy.

Arthur
aball
2,018 posts
 
Oops - sorry about my mistake. Glad you called VAS though because there is a lot of conflicting information about Cayin since they have different models for each market. One of my local buddies has the A70 and he loves it. His Cayin dealer says the A70 sounds better than the A88. But if you are happy with the Jolida, keep it.

Arthur
aball
2,018 posts
 
Hey Bob - the Cayin 70T is auto biasing. I went and checked out my neighbor's yesterday and we looked all over the manual and the amp and there is nothing about biasing anywhere. That is what the dealer told us but we double-checked. He just plugs and plays whatever tubes he wants. So if you still want to try a Cayin amp, get the 70T. It sounds fantastic and you can switch between ultralinear and triode on the fly with the remote! You can also try all the KT tubes as well as the EL tubes in it. Really cool.

Also, the 70T for the US market puts out 55W in UL and 27W in triode. Don't get it confused with the asian market version that is 35W in triode, or some such.

Lastly, there have been reports of fake Cayin amps being sold. I would suggest getting one from your dealer to be safe and sure.

Arthur
aball
2,018 posts
 
Hi John
The pics of your 70T look nothing like my buddy's. He doesn't have any bias adjustment anything. Likewise for his manual. I am beginning to think there are several variations of every model Cayin! Very confusing.

Arthur
aball
2,018 posts
 
Oh yes, our local Cayin dealer gets everything from VAS. I don't think there is any other way short of importing it yourself which is sure to be a disaster.

There are simply different versions, that's all. His 70T came into the store back in November or so. My guess is the later ones are autobiasing whereas the early ones are based on the 88T.

Arthur
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