Audio Aero Capitole MK II: Performance & Problems

I have also received my Capitole MK2 and have tried 4 different kinds of cdr's and it played ALL of them! In fact it even played the ones I made with the cheapest CDR blanks you can buy. I bought 100 blanks from CDW computers and the blanks look just like the Sony playstation cd game disks, they are solid BLACK on the laser side!!!!

The one time (out of 100) that the player failed to read all the cd tracks, I had to open and close the cd door so that it would reinitiallize the reading of the TOC and then it was fine and has been ever since.

The numbers and bars are displayed (dbr from -100 to 0) on units with the P3 chip installed. How do I know, I'm the guy that does the service for Audio Aero. The phase switch still works with the P3 software and you get 4 levels of display dimming. The P3 also fixes a few of the transport reading problems. The original chips were programmed outside Audio Aero's factory (Pre-P3) and now in house programming should take care of any problems as needed.

The two tubes in question are the 6021W. They have 2" wires coming from the base, not the rigid tube pins you see in most other tubes so they can't easily be used with tube sockets. They must be de-soldered and the replacemnents have to be soldered in place. By using a miniture tube that is soldered you gain many advantages over a standard tube/socket: Vibration has less effect on the tube, the tube is more rigidly mounted, connection noise is lower, the tube will not fall out or get damaged in shipping the unit. BOTH MK1 & MK2 use the same wired tube so user replacement is difficult. As stated in an earlier email, I have NOT seen a tube failure besides the one that had a slight hum in one channel and there are units have been playing for OVER two years!

If a tube needs to be replaced I can get it done and return the unit in 48 hours.

I've never had to install 2 tubes before but depending on the cost of the tubes it should be less than $150.