I purchased one in Jan 2010, listened to it for four months, felt it needed re-tubing (I was not quite as disappointed as you). I purchased 4 cv181z Shuguang Black Treasure tubes to replace the EH 6sn7 driver and input tubes and 8 Shuguang kt88 Black Treasure tubes to replace the 8 EH kt88s tubes. I also replaced the four 12au7 EH tubes in my Cary SLP 03 preamp with TJ Full Music 12au7s.
I use HT magic cables and a Sony ES5400 SACD and Harbeth Compact 7 ES3 speakers. I was expecting a nice boost in performance but that has not always been my experiance when dealing with high end audio. Anyway with almost 300 hours on the new tubes I am still amazed at the sound the system produces. I am constantly blown away with the detail, speed, clarity, astounding Bass and so on. This is one of a very few times that I have spent a considerable amount of money and and actually been very happy with the results. Those tubes transformed a decent system into a system that I spend way too much time listening to. I love it!!
I use HT magic cables and a Sony ES5400 SACD and Harbeth Compact 7 ES3 speakers. I was expecting a nice boost in performance but that has not always been my experiance when dealing with high end audio. Anyway with almost 300 hours on the new tubes I am still amazed at the sound the system produces. I am constantly blown away with the detail, speed, clarity, astounding Bass and so on. This is one of a very few times that I have spent a considerable amount of money and and actually been very happy with the results. Those tubes transformed a decent system into a system that I spend way too much time listening to. I love it!!