I recently bought a Musical fidelity X10 v3 tube buffer to complement my system (quad CDP 2/ Musical fidelity A308CR pre/ Quad 909 power/ Ruark Sabre 3 speakers). When I bought the tube buffer I did so because I got it at a very good price and was just curious as to what difference it could make. To be honest I thought I would regard it as a waste of space and sell it on at a small profit. My experience of valve amps as a teenager was distortion/ vague/ no bass and 'woolyness'.

I was very wrong! It does make a difference and strangely appears to REMOVE some form of distortion. Any idea how this can be? It sounds much less congested. Either way the sound is now more natural but with none of the negative valve characteristics I (mistakenly?) remembered.

Not wishing to see this unit die on me I wondered if the valve would ever need replacing. Looking on the web I found it took mu-vista 6112 valves which seem to be totally unavailable and there appear to be no substitutes. Is this likely to be a problem? I saw in a post published by clint E that the valve had an estimated continous use of 100,000 hours which he calculated as over 10years. does this mean that intermittant use is proportionatly longer or doesnt it work like that? when they fail do they deteriorate or just stop working?

On ebay a company offers mods to the unit for £150. Are these worthwhile or a waste of money do you think?

Finally are there any other tube buffers out there and are they any good?

Any opinions appreciated...new to all of this.
Cheers

So, you add a taste of tubes to your great system? Now you have some warmth and humanity that comes with it. Nice.

The X-10V3 has a high input impedance (470k Ohm) and a low output impedance(33 Ohm). What does this mean for you? It means you can keep your tubed or non tube preamp with its 2800 Ohm output impedance and match it to your solid state amp with the 10k Ohm input impedance, and not have to worry about the sonic drawbacks!
From a technical standpoint, it's almost not there. That means extremely low noise, very low distortion, wide bandwidth and outstanding overload margins.

As you might know the X-10V3 is a limited production item. There were only 4800 made, due to the use of the "mu-vista" tube, which is in limited supply (don't worry, Musical Fidelity keeps spares on hand for every piece of gear they'd made). So don't wait, order today! ...or try ebay.

Have fun & enjoy.

Go to http://grantfidelity.com/site/node/75 . One of the best imo.

Currently own both a MF X10v3 tube buffer and a Pacific Valve and Electric Company Yaqin Tube Buffer which uses the single twin triode 6DJ8 tube. With a bit of tube rolling and a better power cord, the Yaqin bests the MF. You can find the Pacific Valve and Electric Company's Yaqin Tube Buffer here: http://www.pacificvalve.us/YaqinTB.html. I haven't heard Grant's tube buffer but I am on the list to demo it and am curious how it would compare to the MF an Yaqin I have. In regards to longevity to the 6112 tubes, MF has yet to have one fail worldwide. I turn mine off when I don't use it and expect it to last quite a long time. If it does fail, I would replace it with the Yaqin that I have. More flexibility, sounds better and is less expensive when the MF was available new.

I'll see where the Demo B-283 is now. Someone is enjoying it way too long !!!.

Most pre-amp style tubes have a life expectancy of 10,000 hours, not 100,000 unless you feed (sacrifice to) the tube gods expensive power tubes every 3rd moon. Of course I have a direct line to them and will handle all cerimonial duties, just send along your sacfifices in good working order

Tube rolling is fun, you can actually get a nice collection, where some work better on different types of music.

Also cryo treating the tubes adds a new dimension to the sound, generally a blacker background and even nicer mids. Highly recommended.

We are experimenting with the whole B-283 being cryo'd. Jury is out at the moment. With around a hundred hours the soundstage has collapsed from the excellent sounstaging un-cryo'd B-283, but the bottom has more detail and overall sounds more musical at the instrument level. Seems like it needs a lot more time to break in, we hope.

At least we have proven there is a big difference in cryo treating the whole unit, but as always, time is needed to determine if the difference is actually better.

Ian

Just to clarify that, according to Musical Fidelity the mu-vista 6112 valves has life expectancy of 100,000 hours, at least.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info, thought it was a typo.

Checked into it and yes small tubes can last 100,000 hours, but I wouldn't want to tell a customer such and we still need to feed the tube gods .

I've had a B-283 (6J1's) and A-34 (EL-34's) on now for just over a year, turned off and on daily or so for a few minutes. Thats about 9000 hours and the EL-34 is suposed to have a max of < 5,000 hours. Shuguang tubes.

In the past year we have had one 6J1, 6SN7, EL-34 and 300B die prematurely, out of quite few tubes put out there, off the top of my head, around 1000.

Ian

thanks everyone, the replies are really interesting. I can see the potential to spend a lot of money here! by the way..what's 'tube rolling' and does anyone have a view on if X10 v3 mods are worthwhile?

Tube rolling is just a term used to try different tubes in your component. I probably tried more than a half dozen tubes in my Yaqin and settled on the JAN Phillips 6922 for my system. The only mod I did to my MF tube buffer was installing a set of Herbies Audio Lab tube dampers to the two 6112 tubes. More detail, tighter bass and smoother mids were the results. A very inexpensive and easy to do upgrade.

Ian,

Just let me know. I will definitely give you an honest review. Looks like on the Pacific Valve site the Yaqin Tube Buffer is their most purchased item. Would have never known that the review I did on that tube buffer more than a year ago would result in such a popularity and interest. But as you well know, these tube buffers sound great! Using two Yaqins and one Musical Fidelity tube buffers for my 5.1 home theater is nirvana!

Slbenz

The only mods you can make at your MF V3 are caps and faster diodes.
Have you any skills in soldering and desoldering? If so, you can make an upgrade for a lot less than 100£. And yes, it's really a worthwhile upgrade.

sorry about delay in response. yes soldering skills pretty good..common sense average to good (ability to understand instructions!)...understanding of electronic circuits.... poor to nil! would like to try upgrade if simple to do. Thanks

The life expectancy of 10 years was grossly overstated for me -- my x10v3 died in about 2 years. By which i mean, one of the 6112 tubes went bad, started crackling in one channel (was approximately left powered up for 2 years, as instructed by the manufacturer). I found and ordered a pack of 4 replacement 6112 tubes. While waiting for them, I obtained the Yaqin tube buffer -- with the supplied tube, didn't hold a candle to the MF. But with some research and experimentation, I found some Amperex 6DJ8 tubes from the 60's and 70's on eBay, and it totally outclassed the MF by my ear -- smoother and sweeter highs, with a more realistic "you-are-there" experience while listening. Bells really started sounding nice from digital sources -- that seems to be the acid -*test*-('") of high frequency performance for me (the speakers are Maggie 3.6R with those famously transparent ribbons).

When the 6112 tubes arrived, I deoldered the bad tube, soldered in a replacement, listened and felt that the performance was as it had been before. I measured both channels to be identical on an oscilloscope (at which time I also realized that the MF imparts a 1dB boost to the signal, vs a bypass, and as I recall, the yaqin imparts a -0.5dB cut to the signal). I wondered if this 1dB boost was an intention MF trick to make the unit sound better in side-by-side comparisons. At any rate, I flipped the MF on eBay for a profit over the original purchase price, and have happily been using the Yaqin since, never looking back. It's not that the MF was bad in any way -- it was good -- just that the cheaper Yaqin is better.