[purk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeymad /img/forum/go_quote.gif Woo Wa5 (not the LE) does have speaker outs. WA5 300SEI Cheers,

That's why it will be such a good comparison. Please do let us know of your impression of these two very fine amplifiers. What sort of an upgrade are you getting with the WA5?

 

[mikeymad]

Purk,

Agreed, I will be swaping the WE300B between the two, but the 6sn7's are not up to the same levels. It should be fun either way.

The Amp unit of WA5 has VCap upgrades. The PSU was stock. I just asked Jack what it would take to Max out the PSU while he had it for an issue. So it is getting upgraded with new Filter Caps. I am hoping to get it back this week (end of the week).

Cheers,

 

[mikeymad]

Okay.... I am up and running again....

"you were down?"

Yep. Listening the other day swapping tubes, swapping headphones, having a grand ol' time. And the Cary went silent.



So I open it up.... nothing to see here. Put in the 'stock' tubes, and turn it on again. The 300B's have power and the 3 6sn7's have none. Interesting.

I called up Cary the next day to possibly ship it back to them for repair. Service Tech was great, and was pretty much walking me through repairing it.

Started to talk jibberish to me. "So did you check the output voltage on the bridge rectifier, and the filter capacitor."

aaaaaauuuu.... what?

Couple of searches to Wiki, and other good sites out there (thanks internet). So I go home, open it up, and follow wires here and there. Plug the amp in and check the voltage for the 300B bridge rectifier - 6.7V. Check the bridge rectifier for the 6sn7's and it was at 2.187V. Not good I think to myself.

Call up Cary again the next day, still thinking that 'yep it is bad, got to send it in'. Let him know the voltage, yep bad. So he was letting me know some part numbers if I wished to order them up.

So... what the heck. I asked him for the ratings of the parts that we were looking at (I have a local store). He went into jebberish mode again about microfarads (15000... okay that seems like a lot of those), various votages and amps. Got it.... (wrote it down).... Back to the internet.... Ahhhh...

Learned more that afternoon at work than I had in a long time.

Hit the local store, and walked out with a small bag of parts. Broke everything down last night. But I really wanted to take my time and put it together right. 12 connections for that little sucker.

Took longer than I wanted, but went together pretty smoothly. Hooked up some power, took a little step back, and turned it on. Okay... nothing went POP. Took a Voltage reading.... 7V!... now we are talking!!

Okay... put the bottom back on. Put it on the rack, drop the 'stock' tubes back in and give it a go.... (pause).... nice glowing all the way around.

CD player to go and headphone in.

Ah... back up and running. My first amp repair ever... well done me.

Oh... and it sounds pretty good too.

Cheers,

 

[Lornecherry]

how is the Cary with your GS1000's? Or shall I say, how does the GS1000 sound when driven by the Cary?

 

[mikeymad]

Funny you should ask. That is the headphones that I plugged in on power up. They sound really good much better than the wa6 that they were in. I think that the sound signature of the GS-1000's match up well with the 300B combo.

I was working up a review the other day before I lost power. That just about every headphone I put on this thing sounds good. And not just, hey that sounds good, but wow that really sounds good. I will have to see how my long term impressions hold up. Also the WA5 PSU is on its way back to me as well.

Cheers,

 

[Rob N]

Do you get any hum from the Cary?

 

[mikeymad]

No hum at all out of mine. It is almost a 20 year old design by now, if there was a hum at one point I would hope that they would have fixed that a long time ago, or I would have a problem with mine or my tubes. I would not call it dead silent. But at a good listening level when you pause the CD, there is no more sound. Crank the volume and there is a little electronic sound, but not a hum...

After a night burn in with the new Cap the sound this morning is very nice. I will power it down and let everything cool for a couple hours and then give it a pretty good test tonight.

Cheers,

 

[mikeymad]

Okay I was not sure if I would post these here or on the WA5 thread.

I just took some pictures of my system all back together.

Now.... I am ready to listen for a while. Spend some good time with the Cary and the WA5 and really see what the true sound is behind each of them.

Cheers,

 

[Skylab]

*****WOW*****

Drool....

nice pics!

 

[Blackmore]

Holy shmoly, amazing set up over there. If you can give some specific/deeper GS1000 impressions, would appriciate it very much.

I am going to sit somewhere in the dark room and cry for a little while

 

[vcoheda]

x2.

that is some impressive toobage. ; )

 

[Blackmore]

Anyone compared Cary vs Zana, using with GS1000, pls share, thx.

 

[mikeymad]

Listening to the Marantz right now. But this weekend the Analog will come alive:

cheers,

 

[twoears&oneheart]

the WA5 powers your speakers? does it do its job well?

msg to mikey mad

 

[mikeymad]

I don't push any speakers with the WA5(or Cary) right now. My main speaker rig is B&W 805 at about 86db (so it would not hold up). I am looking at a near field seup, but not yet.

Cheers 2ears.