Audible Illusions Modulus 3 Audio Research SP-11

Arc gear really does sound good. I'd be hard pressed to think anything could clearly trounce it unless one prefers some special flavor.

09-24-14: Stefanovitch
It eats tubes?

Normally tubes in preamps are uncrictical? How often you did them raplce?
Stefanovitch (Threads | Answers | This Thread)

My friend would replace them every 1 to 1.5 years He would use it around 2 to 3 hours a day.
It's common knowledge that they eat tubes.

More talk on it over here.
[url]http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/amp/messages/19/196393.html[/url]

Cheers George

I owned a Modulus 3 years back. It sounded good but not better than my TAD Signature 150 preamp. Came with a brand new set of National 6922 tubes (not factory recommended I know). They were fried within 200 hours of use. What a tube eater. Sold it and never looked back. I question a tube circuit design that runs the tubes at their absolute limit. Not a good design regardless of how good it sounds. How are you suppose to swap tubes when the majority of brands can't be used. I tried contacting AI via phone calls and/or emails. Never did connect or get a response.

The Audible Illusions 3A is a damn nice sounding preamp. After installing it in my existing system I received many compliments from friends and family how excellent it sounded and how it improved the overall sound.

I think the reason that it got a reputation for eating tubes is because many owners were installing NOS tubes that don't have the durability of the Sovtek tubes that Audible Illusions recommends and sells.

That is right. I never got a response from Audible Illusions either. Audio Research did also sometiemes ignore my mails.

Well, I have a goot technican with 40 years of experiences that services anything, so even the manufactor doesn't respond I usually do not consider it a problem for me.