I just pulled the trigger on a new tüübed pre....this one should be pretty sweet!

Mike Reeter

treitz3 wrote: »

Well, TBT....

I am a very patient man when it comes to audio. I don't know if you remember my crossover/speaker rebuild project on the Tyler's I have but what was supposed to take a couple of weeks...

I think it was 3 and a half years later that it was all finished. I am a very firm believer in that good things come to those who wait.

Tom

Reminds me of when I purchased a Turn Table, I wanted to get the best Table that I could afford. I spent about every dime of my 'Fun Money' on the Deck.

After receiving the new TT, I had to wait for at least 4-6 weeks to pop on a new Cartridge for it, as I had no spares lying around.

During that time period, I would power on the TT and just watch it spin. It was a long wait, but a worthwhile one.

treitz3

audioluvr wrote: »

Dude! You should be hitting that Cary hard so you have a good handle on it's signature. That way when that song bird fires up you can have a fresh comparison at hand and not old stale memories.

That is not necessary. I am intimately familiar with all aspects of the reproductive effort my rig provides and I have had the Cary in there for about (IIRC) a year or so.

I know exactly what she can and cannot do, along with what she is perfectly capable of doing. I am not a subscriber to the argument that one's audible memory fades after 5 minutes. Never have been, never will be. I'm rather **** when it comes to sound and can pick apart any change rather quickly in my rig. I'm not quite certain whether or not this is a good thing but any change, be it upstream or down stream from any component.....or even just ever so minor changes in speaker location/tilt can reveal its ugly head or beautiful rendition of said change and it's quite noticeable.

I will say this. It would be nice if audible memory faded. If it did, the Cary or the Ampino would have been a perfectly good substitute for the Dodd MLP. But alas, they are not and I sometimes will admittedly get so frustrated at listening to a certain passage, song or moment within an album, that I will simply get up, walk to the rig and shut it down because I distinctly knew what the rig is capable of....but just ain't doing anymore. In cases like this? Audible memory loss would be absolutely welcome and wonderful.

A good example of me doing just this was just the other week. I sat down to listen to Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" CD. I was enjoying what I was listening too while I was tinkering around in the stereo room and every once in a while, would sit down just to relax. Well, I sat down during the one song that had seagulls come into the song and then some ocean waves. Normally, they fade into the scene, the seagulls come from many directions and the waves sounded natural. Well, as soon as I heard the seagulls come in? I was severely disappointed. As soon as the waves hit? I got up. Turned the rig off and didn't even listen to it for about 5 days. Again, in cases like this? Audible memory loss would be absolutely welcome and wonderful.

Mike, thanks and I'll keep a lookout. I will need a quad of those though. I have reached out to Canary to see what the stock tube types are. I'll fill you in when I get the information.

I foresee this little birdie buying a lot of tubes in the coming future.

Tom

marvda1

tom, see how much kara wants for a quad.

treitz3

Duly noted.

Tom

treitz3

*Sigh*

It's a good thing I am a patient man. Verb's tubes came in and while the buzz is improved, it is still there. Yes, I re-seated the tubes in the PS as well. When I hit mute while the music was playing, the hum went away 100%. With it just sitting idle or in between songs, there is this buzz that is constant after about the first 20 or so seconds. It does not follow the volume and it is constant no matter what input I have the Canary on.

I have spoken with the seller who is the most gracious of gentlemen and he has offered me two options. We will try option one first, then move onto option 2 if warranted.

The first option was to get a full compliment of all tubes. We will try this first instead of shipping it all the way back to Canary. Hopefully this will resolve the issue.

The second option, if option 1 does not work, will be for me to ship it back to Canary and the seller will take care of any repair costs.

So, for now.....I still have nothing much to offer when it comes to what I hear.

With that said, I am at least able to turn it on now and play some music. After about 15 "clicks" on the volume knob, the buzz gets drowned out on all but the softest of passages and inbeween songs. What I heard during the brief 1/2 an hour was that the imaging was all over the place, which is to be expected without properly warming up.

Another thing I noticed is that I will, once again, have to dial in the subs to this new unit. The lowest of registers hits to an unbelievable low with some really nice texture and separation of instruments. Surprisingly nice texture and reverb and the notes? Well, they dig even deeper than I thought possible. I experienced that with the introduction of the Marantz SA-7S1and I honestly didn't think a system could go that low with such precision, power, accuracy, sound pressure and definition but is something I am DEFINITELY looking forward too once this thing gets fully repaired and is good to go.

The mids and the upper end at this point are just ho-hum average but I fully expect that to change once we get the thing repaired, warmed up and broken in. I only ran it for those 30 minutes and I shut it back down.

I'll hook the Cary back up in the meantime. and get back to waiting for now...

Tom

nooshinjohn

Sounds like an impedance issue. I had that with every tube pre I tried to run in my rig with the Carvers, until I went Pass Labs and stepped back from tube preamps. Even my current unit had that issue, until it went back to Pass for adjustment and a couple resistors.

treitz3

That thought crossed my mind as well 7 days ago even though there should not be one, so I showed John at Canary a rundown of my rig and the spec's of the things he would need to look at. He took a look at everything. Apparently, there is no impedance issue as we have already ruled that out.

Tom

pitdogg2

muckerfudgesludge.....that sucks!

mhardy6647

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Sounds like an impedance issue. I had that with every tube pre I tried to run in my rig with the Carvers, until I went Pass Labs and stepped back from tube preamps. Even my current unit had that issue, until it went back to Pass for adjustment and a couple resistors.

treitz3 wrote: »

That thought crossed my mind as well 7 days ago even though there should not be one, so I showed John at Canary a rundown of my rig and the spec's of the things he would need to look at. He took a look at everything. Apparently, there is no impedance issue as we have already ruled that out.

Tom

https://canaryaudio.com/C800.html

What power amplifier(s) have you tried it with, @treitz3 ?

treitz3

Musical Fidelity A3cr - Here's the spec's...



Tom

mhardy6647

Thanks!

31k input impedance certainly should be OK, but could be cuttin' it a little fine with that 1200 ohm output impedance of the preamp.

Out of curiosity: does the Canary preamp use a regular resistive volume control or some sort of constant impedance attenuator?

Obviously, the guy who designed it ought to know if there's gonna be an intrinsic problem with any given combination... but it's interesting for those of us who enjoy
troubleshooting to muse over.

treitz3

It's got a 120-step discrete relay attenuator for the volume control. The volume level is comparable to the Dodd. Basically, at volume level 25 out of 100....the volume is pretty much the same or the same as the Dodd was at 9:00 on the dial. Right at about 30 is when it starts to get loud (9:35).

Tom

verb

Well Tom I'm happy that the tubes arrived safe, and that the pre is somewhat playable. Still sad that it didn't kill the issue! Dang!

Well don't give up! We're all rooting for you!

mhardy6647

Speaking of hummmms and buzzzzzes and XLR connections... @treitz3, did you happen to see this post by @KennethSwauger?

https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/comment/2566814#Comment_2566814

... or were you using the preamp with unbalanced connections?

BlueFox

mhardy6647 wrote: »

Speaking of hummmms and buzzzzzes and XLR connections... @treitz3, did you happen to see this post by @KennethSwauger?

https://forum.polkaudio.com/discussion/comment/2566814#Comment_2566814

... or were you using the preamp with unbalanced connections?

It would seem that using balanced connections would be difficult.

mhardy6647

Derp-- I swear I thought I remembered that it had both.
Ahh, well.

I am, needless to say, mostly an unbalanced kind of guy.

sorry

pitdogg2

Take the blue pill Doc

mhardy6647

yeah, I am a little more scattershot than usual today...

treitz3

Wow. I finally had some time today to do a little bit more troubleshooting before I sent them off for repair (We decided not to try the tube option first). I hooked back up the Cary and the sound...well sounds SS but much more "small".

It went from filling the room with sound back to, shall I say....speakers emanating sound and all that bass that was so wonderful to hear is gone. *poof*

Packing the Canary up as I type and will be shipping them back to Canary for John to go back over and put in a full compliment of the stock Canary tubes.

It sucks but at least I have sound again. I was definitely spoiled by the sound from the Canary, even with the buzz issue. Doc, you cracked me up today.

Tom

mhardy6647

My pleasure. Maybe senility is closer than I thought. Wait, is than an oxymoron?!

Speaking of hum, and buzz, and good (or even great sound) -- those of us... ahem... who developed a taste for direct heated triode power amplification and crazy-sensitive loudspeakers know exactly what you mean.



... and I've still got a preamp here myself that is in a similar state (in the sound and the buzz sense)

marvda1

any word on the preamp yet?

treitz3

It gets delivered back to Canary tomorrow for repair/diagnosis. Probably will not know anything until Thursday as it isn't set to be delivered until EOD.

Tom

tonyb

Sorry to hear about your troubles Tom. Always sucks when you have to send a piece back like that.

TEAforONE

You are handling this much better than I would be. Kudos to your level head!

treitz3

Thank you sir.

There are a couple of things that help. I am speaking directly with the lead engineer at Canary as well as the seller. Both are extremely quick to respond and the seller wants very much to make me happy, as he has already moved up the Canary line and got the TOTL 2 chassis Canary Pre c-1800 as seen below.



This is the one I truly wanted (because of the tubes utilized) but my wallet just sat there laughing every time I thought about it. IIRC, that's about an 18K pre. Perhaps one day...

The fact that the seller moved on up the Canary line for his main rig after auditioning the one I now own that was in his bedroom rig that never really materialized speaks volumes that he was pleased with what Canary had to offer.

I may be able to find out something today. I checked the tracker and all 3 boxes were dropped off inside the Canary facility yesterday (a day early).

Tom

mhardy6647

The silver face is pretty.

treitz3

It's actually a gold/champagne type color, much like the Marantz Reference Series SA-7S1 I have. Yes, it is stunning. Pic's do not do it justice at all and lighting has the ability to slightly change the color of it as well. I do agree though. It is good eye candy.

Tom

mhardy6647

treitz3 wrote: »

It's actually a gold/champagne type color, much like the Marantz Reference Series SA-7S1 I have. Yes, it is stunning. Pic's do not do it justice at all and lighting has the ability to slightly change the color of it as well. I do agree though. It is good eye candy.

Tom

close enough It does look nice, whatever it be.

Yeah, Marantz has gone the champagne route numerous times in the brand's history. Heck, there was a 2220 (unsuffixed) that passed through here long ago that was champagne colored as opposed to silver. Engraved lettering, too.

Of course, sometimes, the older components' 'champagne' faceplates are tinted by a nicotine patina.

treitz3

Well, I got an update tonight. I called John and left a message to see if there was any progress. No answer, so I left a message. He called back about 5 minutes later and stated that he had not had a chance to look at it yet (which was not a surprise, seeing as how I have been in constant communication and he had stated earlier on that he was very busy this week). He stated that he would get back to me on Monday. *sigh*

Then I got a surprise phone call about an hour and a half later after contacting the seller to let him know the current status. It was John. He dove in and found out that the output capacitors went bad. He could not figure out as to what the exact cause was (never happened before) but he immediately put in order a new set of 8 output capacitors.

The ones that came with the unit they no longer make and he wanted some of the same or higher quality, so he put in an order for $475.00 worth of capacitors. He stated that they should arrive Thursday or Friday of next week and he'll ship it back to me at that point. He stated that with these new capacitors (the ones he chose) that I should be very pleased with the pre....with a distinct emphasis on "very".

So, Doc....you wanted to know what the diagnosis was? There ya' go.

Tom

mhardy6647

Thanks.
That seems like a weird thing to have happen -- not something that would lend itself well to tele-diagnosis, so to speak.