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  3. 982899790

New tubes every year...or every five? ?

I may get thrown off this forum, referred to an ear specialist and sent to Circuit City to replace my system, but it recently occured to me that I did not change the tubes in my recently dumped Jadis JPL pre amp for 5 years! There is no on/off switch on this pre amp but there is a "stand by" switch which was always on. I would say I listened to the system for only an hour or so a week. Since trading my Apogee stages for Martin Logan SL3's about 3 years ago, I rarely listened to the system and found it uninvolving and a little fatiguing and bright. It didn't necessarily sound bad -- I thought I just needed to buy a new D/A or go back to LPs. Is it possible that my very light use and the standby switch would give the tubes such a long lifespan or would a change of tubes have dramatically improved the sound? Maybe I should have kept the system?!? Oh well, more fun to buy new stuff...
cwlondon

Showing 4 responses by detlof

detlof
1,899 posts
 
Musicslug, true what you say, but then there is also tube aging with its slow and gentle deterioration, which is indeed hardly noticable. Generally you only realise the need for change when you have indeed done so. That's what's bugging us. So right you are, all the more there is need for a tube tester. Not for compulsion neurotics though, because they might test tubes more than using them for enjoyment. All the same: Anyone got an idea of a reliable source for them ? (t.testers..not c.neurotics)
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Hi Garfish, this is just a guess, but I think its probably the Sovtecs and not the SF. My experience has been, that Sovtecs seem to age rather quickly with exactly the sound-effects, which you describe and this not only in the Jadis, but also in the Beveridges of yore, a wonderful design by Roger Modjeski, which was killed and driven off the market by a hatchet review of H.Pearson in favour of the ARC SP8, in the SP 11 and 12.
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Hi Gregm, what a great story! What we should probably get, is a tube tester with the necessary charts, then we could objectify what we hear. If remember correctly, there was a thread also about Jadis and the Aesthetix Io where Albert Porter told us, that he also had his Io switched on 24/7 and that after a year he remeasured his tubes with hardly a change for the worse. Memory may trick me here, but I think that was the gist if his message. Great thread, by the way!
detlof
1,899 posts
 
CWlondon, hi! I have a Jadis front end for about five years now. I listen dayly from one to three hours plus one hour warm up time. I use Telefunkens salvaged from old gear, however paired and measured for noise in my headamp and the phonopart in the pre. Never changed a tube so far. The other day, after a cleaning frenzy, I put in a back up set of the same tubes just for a try and listened a whole Saturday afternoon. Afterwards I happily put my old set back in. Now the question arises: Is it the Telefunkens, is it the Jadis design or should I have my ears examined?
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