[jamato8]

Its the same for me. From top to bottom, Susvara is incredibly well balanced. I get it might not excite those that want pounding bass, nor will it excite those that want a brighter presentation. But for me it hits the perfect blend of balance, poise, refinement and presentation. The CV6 i bought (the really strong ones) were £150! Which is a screaming bargain compared with the Tung Sols. Im happy with them on both Deyans adapters and Mrs X (ebay) versions. Mrs X afford better placing and you can fit the faraday cage back on with small extensions. But with Deyans, the cage will no longer fit. It may or may not matter to you. I bought both so i can easily swap out GEC CV6 / MULLARD CV6 / Kenrad 7193 / Union C2CC as full sets in order to compare. I also have multiple 6SN7 (RCA Brown, Russians, TUngsol, CVT181V2, Sylvania) plus multiples of RCA 6F8G. At some point i need to sell all the others so i can buy more CV6

On the Deyan you can have the base made shorter. I had mine made very short and it works the same as the taller version and if you want to use the cage ( I don't) it will work fine.

 

[Aeonyx]

Duplicate post, please delete

 

[Aeonyx]

Its the same for me. From top to bottom, Susvara is incredibly well balanced. I get it might not excite those that want pounding bass, nor will it excite those that want a brighter presentation. But for me it hits the perfect blend of balance, poise, refinement and presentation. The CV6 i bought (the really strong ones) were £150! Which is a screaming bargain compared with the Tung Sols. Im happy with them on both Deyans adapters and Mrs X (ebay) versions. Mrs X afford better placing and you can fit the faraday cage back on with small extensions. But with Deyans, the cage will no longer fit. It may or may not matter to you. I bought both so i can easily swap out GEC CV6 / MULLARD CV6 / Kenrad 7193 / Union C2CC as full sets in order to compare. I also have multiple 6SN7 (RCA Brown, Russians, TUngsol, CVT181V2, Sylvania) plus multiples of RCA 6F8G. At some point i need to sell all the others so i can buy more CV6

Mrs X? Do you have a link for those? Thanks

 

[Yossy96]

Has anyone else had issues with the Western Electric 300B tubes and the Cayin HA300 or MK2? My Cayin HA300 failed the first day I installed brand new WE 300B's and a part in the power supply called an inrush current limiter basically exploded and turned to dust. I assumed there must be an issue with the tubes at the time but they were RMA'd and tested perfectly.

Unfortunately Cayin won't service under warranty because I rolled tubes (is this really standard or is it because they're assuming the tubes were faulty when apparently they weren't?) It's really difficult to find someone to fix it in Toronto or Canada but I bought it online from a store in NYC called Audio46. They referred me to the distributor RSM who wouldn't even respond to my query for a week until I asked Audio 46 to contact them as well. RSM refused warranty but said I could send it to VAS industries and if they decided it was a manufacturing defect rather than caused by installation of other tubes I wouldn't have to pay servicing fees or return shipping. But when I contacted Cayin they said they haven't worked with VAS industries for a long time and don't anymore. However they didn't respect Western Electric's message that the tubes are perfect and won't help me get it fixed. They say I should have shipped it to VAS but also that they are not associated with them at all. It all feels sketchy to me and I'm not sure what to do. It's a huge, heavy $4000 amp and I don't know how much shipping back and forth over the border will be and whatever arbitrary servicing fees VAS might slap on me.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I am new to tubes this year. Pretty disoriented by the lack of warning that rolling tubes voids warranty when the manual literally describes compatible substitute tubes and I bought brand new reputable tubes.

 

[krude]

Has anyone else had issues with the Western Electric 300B tubes and the Cayin HA300 or MK2? My Cayin HA300 failed the first day I installed brand new WE 300B's and a part in the power supply called an inrush current limiter basically exploded and turned to dust. I assumed there must be an issue with the tubes at the time but they were RMA'd and tested perfectly.

Unfortunately Cayin won't service under warranty because I rolled tubes (is this really standard or is it because they're assuming the tubes were faulty when apparently they weren't?) It's really difficult to find someone to fix it in Toronto or Canada but I bought it online from a store in NYC called Audio46. They referred me to the distributor RSM who wouldn't even respond to my query for a week until I asked Audio 46 to contact them as well. RSM refused warranty but said I could send it to VAS industries and if they decided it was a manufacturing defect rather than caused by installation of other tubes I wouldn't have to pay servicing fees or return shipping. But when I contacted Cayin they said they haven't worked with VAS industries for a long time and don't anymore. However they didn't respect Western Electric's message that the tubes are perfect and won't help me get it fixed. They say I should have shipped it to VAS but also that they are not associated with them at all. It all feels sketchy to me and I'm not sure what to do. It's a huge, heavy $4000 amp and I don't know how much shipping back and forth over the border will be and whatever arbitrary servicing fees VAS might slap on me.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I am new to tubes this year. Pretty disoriented by the lack of warning that rolling tubes voids warranty when the manual literally describes compatible substitute tubes and I bought brand new reputable tubes.

Holy thats a horrible story. I sincerely hope Cayin will sort you out. This is their flagship afaik and companies really have to take care of their totl products through the whole lifecycle.

I had (and heard about a lot about from other owners) great support from Hifiman for Susvara, I would expect any manufacturer to do the same for their flagships.

 

[Yossy96]

Holy thats a horrible story. I sincerely hope Cayin will sort you out. This is their flagship afaik and companies really have to take care of their totl products through the whole lifecycle.

I had (and heard about a lot about from other owners) great support from Hifiman for Susvara, I would expect any manufacturer to do the same for their flagships.

Thankyou, I agree and have experienced excellent customer service from Hifiman when a pair of refurbished HE1000SE were malfunctioning. Because of their great customer service I did confidently upgrade to the Susvara and they are perfect. I do not feel the same way about Cayin. I will not support them ever again. Thanks for mentioning the life cycle. It's only been 4 months. I'm ready to go solid state only unfortunately. Western Electric have been great with RMA and I know it's a 5yr warranty but if I have no use for their tubes if they cause issues with the Cayin despite not being faulty, I also can't transfer warranty which makes it hard to sell those $2000 tubes I only got to listen to for a few hours.. Not a rewarding experience.

 

[krude]

Thankyou, I agree and have experienced excellent customer service from Hifiman when a pair of refurbished HE1000SE were malfunctioning. Because of their great customer service I did confidently upgrade to the Susvara and they are perfect. I do not feel the same way about Cayin. I will not support them ever again. Thanks for mentioning the life cycle. It's only been 4 months. I'm ready to go solid state only unfortunately. Western Electric have been great with RMA and I know it's a 5yr warranty but if I have no use for their tubes if they cause issues with the Cayin despite not being faulty, I also can't transfer warranty which makes it hard to sell those $2000 tubes I only got to listen to for a few hours.. Not a rewarding experience.

Don't give up on tubes! HA300MK2 is my 2nd Cayin and I haven't had a single issue and haven't heard about issues with their amps ... but also I would really expect them to support their customers especially with their totl products! I would ask @Andykong here for help ...

If you won't have any luck with Cayin try snatching a 2nd hand Woo WA5 from classifieds and use your WE! You won't get this sound from solid state, not even close, that I can promise you.

 

[Cayin]

Thanks very much for your report and sorry to hear the bad experience. Here we want to take the chance to explain to you all our warranty terms:

1. All our warranty is only covered by its original owner at its original selling territory. As a result as always we strongly suggest you all to buy locally from our authorized agent. If anyone of you do not know our local dealer network please help check as in link below:

https://en.cayin.cn/store/21.html

If you cannot find any dealers locally from the link please feel free to get contact with us and we will give you suggestion where you can buy our products with service support.

2. All our warranty service is given and supported by our local agent. If there were any warranty issues please feel free to get contact with our local agent. Agin our local agent information you can find from link https://en.cayin.cn/store/21.html.

Thanks very much.

Best regards,

Cayin

 

[krude]

Has anyone else had issues with the Western Electric 300B tubes and the Cayin HA300 or MK2? My Cayin HA300 failed the first day I installed brand new WE 300B's and a part in the power supply called an inrush current limiter basically exploded and turned to dust. I assumed there must be an issue with the tubes at the time but they were RMA'd and tested perfectly.

Unfortunately Cayin won't service under warranty because I rolled tubes (is this really standard or is it because they're assuming the tubes were faulty when apparently they weren't?) It's really difficult to find someone to fix it in Toronto or Canada but I bought it online from a store in NYC called Audio46. They referred me to the distributor RSM who wouldn't even respond to my query for a week until I asked Audio 46 to contact them as well. RSM refused warranty but said I could send it to VAS industries and if they decided it was a manufacturing defect rather than caused by installation of other tubes I wouldn't have to pay servicing fees or return shipping. But when I contacted Cayin they said they haven't worked with VAS industries for a long time and don't anymore. However they didn't respect Western Electric's message that the tubes are perfect and won't help me get it fixed. They say I should have shipped it to VAS but also that they are not associated with them at all. It all feels sketchy to me and I'm not sure what to do. It's a huge, heavy $4000 amp and I don't know how much shipping back and forth over the border will be and whatever arbitrary servicing fees VAS might slap on me.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I am new to tubes this year. Pretty disoriented by the lack of warning that rolling tubes voids warranty when the manual literally describes compatible substitute tubes and I bought brand new reputable tubes.

Also Wstern Electric are THE standard 300B tube. I would cut Cayin some slack if you were rolling some dodgy tubes, but with WE they really don't have an argument here.

And yes, tube amps are useless without rolling, you need those proper tubes to get them to perform!

I would expect them at least to take the amp in and do an honest investigation. If it was a manufaturer defect they should sort you out, also not sure if a tube like WE could be so faulty to cause damage to the amp we have some tube experts here so maybe someone can comment.

 

[jonchard]

Mrs X? Do you have a link for those? Thanks

I might have the name wrong and i have no idea where i picked that name up from!! But here is an advert to the set im using alongside Deyans.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20401506...m/uuPn8kX/DQOybVbxKoYW6avi5v|tkp:BFBMgKLHy4Rj

 

[Andykong]

Has anyone else had issues with the Western Electric 300B tubes and the Cayin HA300 or MK2? My Cayin HA300 failed the first day I installed brand new WE 300B's and a part in the power supply called an inrush current limiter basically exploded and turned to dust. I assumed there must be an issue with the tubes at the time but they were RMA'd and tested perfectly.

Unfortunately Cayin won't service under warranty because I rolled tubes (is this really standard or is it because they're assuming the tubes were faulty when apparently they weren't?) It's really difficult to find someone to fix it in Toronto or Canada but I bought it online from a store in NYC called Audio46. They referred me to the distributor RSM who wouldn't even respond to my query for a week until I asked Audio 46 to contact them as well. RSM refused warranty but said I could send it to VAS industries and if they decided it was a manufacturing defect rather than caused by installation of other tubes I wouldn't have to pay servicing fees or return shipping. But when I contacted Cayin they said they haven't worked with VAS industries for a long time and don't anymore. However they didn't respect Western Electric's message that the tubes are perfect and won't help me get it fixed. They say I should have shipped it to VAS but also that they are not associated with them at all. It all feels sketchy to me and I'm not sure what to do. It's a huge, heavy $4000 amp and I don't know how much shipping back and forth over the border will be and whatever arbitrary servicing fees VAS might slap on me.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I am new to tubes this year. Pretty disoriented by the lack of warning that rolling tubes voids warranty when the manual literally describes compatible substitute tubes and I bought brand new reputable tubes.

Something didn't check out, can you PM me the message you have received regarding the following statement? I would like to read the original statement, in its wording. Sometimes our staff in China responds to overseas messages with an online translator, and this might cause misunderstanding occasionally.

Cayin won't service under warranty because I rolled tubes

This is an extraction from the Cayin HA-300MK2 user manual. We have provided detailed information regarding tube substitution, if Cayin didn't allow users to roll the tubes, we shouldn't have listed this in our user manual.

Those who have been following different Cayin tube amplifier threads will notice that I have followed up with questions regarding tube substitution that are not listed in the manual, and I have advice, on Cayin's behalf, which tubes are technically safe and which are not recommended, so saying Cayin won't service the HA-300MK2 under warranty because the users rolled tube is contradicting to our track record. However, we have provided tube-changing instructions and we did run into a situation where we refused warranty service because the user damaged the amplifier due to an incorrect procedure when they rolled the tubes, and that includes, but is not limited to, hot-plug the tube as quickly as possible to AB compare the audio performance of tube rolling.

For the record, VAS was our US dealer for traditional HiFi products, they decided to focus on other business options and slowed down on the amplifier retail business, which is why we didn't have any retail arrangement with them for a very long time. We maintained a very good relationship with VAS, back in the 2019 CanJam New York, which was the last CanJam I attended before COVID, Steve, owner of VAS Audio had popped into Cayin's room several times and we had a very pleasant reunion. Steve is very familiar with the construction and maintenance of our amplifiers, so I am not surprised that RMA contracted VAS as part of their service support after they took up the US dealership in Cayin desktop amplifiers. VAS is a reliable shop and has been well received in this business, I suggest you send your amplifier to VAS as suggested by RSM, and I'll make sure that if the repair agent of RSM determines that this is a manufacturer defect, the cost of shipping and repair will be covered by our sides.

 

[krude]

Something didn't check out, can you PM me the message you have received regarding the following statement? I would like to read the original statement, in its wording. Sometimes our staff in China responds to overseas messages with an online translator, and this might cause misunderstanding occasionally.


This is an extraction from the Cayin HA-300MK2 user manual. We have provided detailed information regarding tube substitution, if Cayin didn't allow users to roll the tubes, we shouldn't have listed this in our user manual.




Those who have been following different Cayin tube amplifier threads will notice that I have followed up with questions regarding tube substitution that are not listed in the manual, and I have advice, on Cayin's behalf, which tubes are technically safe and which are not recommended, so saying Cayin won't service the HA-300MK2 under warranty because the users rolled tube is contradicting to our track record. However, we have provided tube-changing instructions and we did run into a situation where we refused warranty service because the user damaged the amplifier due to an incorrect procedure when they rolled the tubes, and that includes, but is not limited to, hot-plug the tube as quickly as possible to AB compare the audio performance of tube rolling.

For the record, VAS was our US dealer for traditional HiFi products, they decided to focus on other business options and slowed down on the amplifier retail business, which is why we didn't have any retail arrangement with them for a very long time. We maintained a very good relationship with VAS, back in the 2019 CanJam New York, which was the last CanJam I attended before COVID, Steve, owner of VAS Audio has popped into Cayin's room several times and we had a very pleasant reunion. Steve is very familiar with the construction and maintenance of our amplifiers, so I am not surprised that RMA contracted VAS as part of their service support after they took up the US dealership in Cayin desktop amplifiers. VAS is a reliable shop and has been well received in this business, I suggest you send your amplifier to VAS as suggested by RSM, and I'll make sure if the repair agent of RSM has determined that this is a manufacturer defect, we'll cover the cost of shipping and repair.

Excellent @Yossy96 I really hope to see you back in this thread soon sharing your WE impressions

 

[mfgillia]

we did run into a situation where we refused warranty service because the user damaged the amplifier due to an incorrect procedure when they rolled the tubes, and that includes, but is not limited to, hot-plug the tube as quickly as possible to AB compare the audio performance of tube rolling.

 

[jamato8]

As Andy wrote above, in their manual it shows the substitutions and the tubes to be used. No tube amp manufacturer expects a customer to only use the tubes supplied. That would be like a car manufacturer telling you to use only one brand of gas. Some, not a lot but some, will even honor a warranty if you have done a simple modification like changing the coupling caps, as long as what you have done, was not what cause a problem, if one arrises.

The WE 300B is a true 300B and unless an issue, would not be something that would cause a warranty problem.

I have thought about someone trying to hot swap tubes but thought that no one with any sense would do this.

 

[Yossy96]

Thankyou Andy you must have convinced someone because I just got an offer of guaranteed servicing I wouldn't have to pay for, after a month of asking for that.

They're still considering my warranty void which I think is a bit contradictory but at this point I'll take anything.

A month ago, 8 days after I wrote and got the dealer to bug them, the rep at RSM finally said:

"We are sorry for your issue. We have seen issues previously where the HA300 is damaged by installing defective tubes. I apologize but as you had purchased and installed these aftermarket tubes the warranty is no longer applicable.

For this situation we suggest you contact our U.S. Repair Partner, VAS Audio. They have extensive knowledge on the HA300 and are the repair service we recommend for all non-warranty issues."
https://vasnyinc.com/

after my reply:

"Please know that installing different tubes is suggested, though the use of non-Cayin products that causes damage to the HA300 is not considered a manufacturer’s defect."

"Our initial assessment is this is a issue caused by the installation of non-factory tubes. You will need to ship the HA300 to VAS Industries and cover the cost of the shipping fees. Our Engineer will assess the HA300 and determine the cause of the issue and the solution to repair the unit. Should the issue be caused by a manufacturing defect, we will pay for the repair and the shipping cost to send back to you. Should the cost of the defect be non-related to a manufacturing defect you will be required to pay for the repair and the shipping cost to return to you." (how would they determine that?)


The rep at Cayin kept repeating:

"1. All our warranty is only covered by its original owner at its original selling territory. As for your case the unit should be sold in USA and you can only get warranty from our USA agents.
2. All our warranty service is given by our local agent. If there were any warranty issues please feel free to get contact with our local agent. On your case it is RSM as we advised to you. (in fact they were referring me to VAS but also said "VAS INC is not our authorized agent. We have stopped cooperation with them for years." confusing)
3. Any defective out of self modification will not be covered by our warranty. " (this sounds like it actually refers to opening up the amp, not rolling tubes but they're using this to tell me rolling new WE300B's voids the warranty)

"Our local agent in Canada for your reference is as below:
In order to guarantee the validity of warranty in future please buy our products there locally. " (I guess they're assuming the only reason I was still asking for warranty is as if I didn't want to pay shipping to the states - but in fact it's the principle of the warranty being void for rolling tubes and the guarantee of servicing being covered by Cayin when I haven't done anything wrong and the WE tubes have been tested as perfect)
"First and most important mistake you've made is that you have not bought the unit from local authorized agent. If you bought there locally your issue can be easily taken care of by our local agent." (suggesting in fact that perhaps the reason I'm being refused warranty is that Cayin doesn't want to have to pay for the shipping across the border)

Just to be clear because it's being named I would never dare hot swap.

I think people should know about this discrepancy between what the manual is suggesting and how Cayin and some distributors respond when their units fail after rolling tubes. Perhaps buying across borders and language barriers are an issue but at the core there is a real issue here of subjective policy that leads to the worst experience of customer service I've ever had, particularly for a premium product.

If you click the big Support button on Cayin's website it simply reads:

"Cayin products are represented and offered by its Authorized International Distributors and Dealers. Any products sold via authorized Distributors or Dealers are covered by Cayin's warranty. The warranty is for the sole benefit of the original purchaser of the covered product. If there were any service issues please get contact with your local authorized Distributor or Dealer. If case you want to get contact with Cayin Directly please send your inquiries to service@cayin.cn. "

In a case where neither dealer nor distributor actually honor warranty or help a consumer whose product fails, to be frank I think this is representative of Cayin washing their hands of responsibility beyond the manufacturing process. That's not a warranty to begin with in my understanding.

Now if I can get this baby working again with the help of VAS and I'm not charged for it beyond shipping to the states, mostly all is well again, but I still won't be allowed warranty for the remaining 8 months of that term and this back and forth has been absolutely exhausting. If the so-called perfect WE 300B tubes did cause it to fail should I really trust the amp with them even after it's fixed? Why would I subject myself to this whole process again?

Thanks again for your help everyone.