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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
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albertporter
4,949 posts
 
I don't have enough experience with the Jadis circuit to know whether the tubes could survive that length of time or not. I did have a similar situation with a Counterpoint SA9 phono stage that was left on (NOT just standby) for 24/7. During a storm, a roof leak and water entering the chassis made repair necessary. This occurred almost exactly 4 years from the day I bought this unit and first turned it on. The repair was made to a section of circuit board and a small cap, but the factory gave a clean bill of health to all the tubes! Obviously this would have been a great time to sell me a new set, so I must assume they indeed ran all that time without enough wear to sabotage the factory test specs.
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?
gregm
3,395 posts
 
Cwlondon, Detlof & others, we'll get a quantity discount for the examination or the hearing aids... I had a Jadis front end with Sylvanias. I sold this back in 1991. The buyer subsequently sold to a friend of mine and, there I was, staring at the same old Jadis about two months ago. Same old Sylvanias, too. Now how about that... (my friend does have a set of brand new Golden Dragons sitting in a drawer)
musicslug
430 posts
 
In my experience, when a preamp needs a new tube, you'll know it: noise, tube 'rush' etc. Not subtle. Plus, don't you have access to a tube tester?
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!
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