Aesthetix Io Users Group

[Ron Resnick]

I completely agree there almost is never any excuse for not answering the phone, not responding to an email and not being responsive.

 

[mariusc]

Well.........
Just became a member, and wanted some help with the Io signature version, but after reading all 58 pages in this thread, I´m afraid, there´s not much to have.
Just to clarify, I´m a certified A/V technician, and has been for close to 50 years. And here´s where the story begins.
My longtime friend and fellow enthusiast, living just 10 min. from my residense,
has enjoyed his Io signature for many years. He has been playing for several hours daily, and a couple of years ago, he decided, that it was time for tube-replacement. He contacted the sweedish distributor and put in an order for a complete tube packet. 15 months later, without any response, he gave up. The only explanation he got, was that Aeshetix didn´t reply.
Then about a month ago he called me, almost in tears, that the Io had stopped working. The HT and filament lamps on PSU lighted up slowly as normal, but no sound.
I asked him to bring it, which he did. We took the cover off of the PSU, and the obvious came to sight. Big black burnt spot on one of the EL34 sockets. 5 or 6 traces on the PCB had gone up in smoke.
Have spent a couple of weeks measuring an repairing the PCB, replaced the socket, since it was impossible to clean (deep burn into the ceramic). 4 of the LM317T regulators shorted, small transistors shorted/open, several electrolytics shorted with big burnmarks on them etc etc.
Replaced all tubes in both Io and PSU.
Now it powers up, all filaments glow normally. Connected to my home system, you can hear amplification is active, meaning the tube hiss sounds normal when turning the pre fully up. But still no signal. You can faintly hear music being played when the volume is turned to max., so something is still missing.
That´s when I contacted Aesthetix by e-mail....... twice, since the first email wasn´t replied to in over a week. I also wrote the serial no. which are the same on both riaa and psu, and offered to send pictures to prove ownership (of my friend, of course). Asked them the second time, if it could really be true, that my e-mail didn´t even qualify for a reply. Still nothing.
Then trying to phone them within office hours = "The person at this extension is not available at the moment"......at every call.
The shipping costs (from Denmark anyway) is beyond stupid close to fraud, so unfortunately not an option.
I guess reverse engineering a schematic from the PCB would be possible, if you had nothing else to do for the next couple of months, but this too is not an option, at least for me.
All I can say for now is, that I´m really dissapointed with the way, Aesthetix treat their customers not residents of the US. I would have been happy signing a NDA, just to have a glance at the schematics of the PSU, but not getting my hopes up anymore. My friend is equally dissapointed too, and no matter how good the Io is, it has to go when finally finished.
Should I have missed any info in any post, or if someone has similar experience/solution, I would love to hear.
@Lagonda..... seeing, you´re from Denmark, please PM me with info on who in Sweeden you were mentioning.
Sorry for the loooong post.

Sorry to hear about all your trouble. I had just the opposite experience. My three box IO Eclipse gave problems on one channel. I contacted Jim White in person, and he immediately responded and sent me a detailed test procedure. I returned the measurements, the fault was identified and replacement parts, together with a set of 32 matched tubes arrived in South Africa within a week. Our technician did the repair within a day and the superb phono / line stage was up and running again. The IO Eclipse remains one of the best phono / line stages that I've ever used in my system (dCS Vivaldi, SME 30, Gryphon Antileon Evo, Wilson Alexia)

 

[BoyDK]

Sorry to hear about all your trouble. I had just the opposite experience. My three box IO Eclipse gave problems on one channel. I contacted Jim White in person, and he immediately responded and sent me a detailed test procedure. I returned the measurements, the fault was identified and replacement parts, together with a set of 32 matched tubes arrived in South Africa within a week. Our technician did the repair within a day and the superb phono / line stage was up and running again. The IO Eclipse remains one of the best phono / line stages that I've ever used in my system (dCS Vivaldi, SME 30, Gryphon Antileon Evo, Wilson Alexia)

Congratulations...... That´s really great to hear.
Guess some people have all the luck .
I ran out of patience though. After more than one unanswered e-mail and no one in the other end of several phone calls, I´ve given up, put the units back together, and asked my friend to come and pick it up.
If I had had the luck to get in touch with Jim White, I´m sure we could have had the same sparring about test procedures and ended up with a working Io Signature without them releasing schematics, but when you´re completely ignored???
Lucky you, that it worked out

BTW: Do you have a direct phone number, where I can reach Jim White??
Guess, if I could get in touch with him, I might be willing to take it all apart one more time to see, if I/we could get it to work. Feel welcome to PM me, if it´s OK with Jim (guess you´ll have to ask him first).

 

[mariusc]

Congratulations...... That´s really great to hear.
Guess some people have all the luck .
I ran out of patience though. After more than one unanswered e-mail and no one in the other end of several phone calls, I´ve given up, put the units back together, and asked my friend to come and pick it up.
If I had had the luck to get in touch with Jim White, I´m sure we could have had the same sparring about test procedures and ended up with a working Io Signature without them releasing schematics, but when you´re completely ignored???
Lucky you, that it worked out

BTW: Do you have a direct phone number, where I can reach Jim White??
Guess, if I could get in touch with him, I might be willing to take it all apart one more time to see, if I/we could get it to work. Feel welcome to PM me, if it´s OK with Jim (guess you´ll have to ask him first).

PM sent

 

[OGH]

I am sad to hear about these repair problems, and hope Aesthetix creates a better repair arrangement. One place in Europe, at least? Living in Norway this concerns me too. The effect is that I dont use my Io as much as I want to. I worry about something going wrong and having to ship it (once more) across the Atlantic.

Another subject: how do you rate your analog playback, compared to digital? For me, there is still no substitute for analog. Although my digitial (Teac nt-505) sounds much better than what I had before, the best-sounding LPs take me to another level. But better digital helps me judge what is worth the LP price. For example, I bought Endresen and Wesseltoft: 'Out here, in there' on 2xLP at 45 rpm, it sounds sublime. So, my digital is mainly for researching, while the analog is the real thing. Still.

 

[Reinhard]

Jim White is very reluctant to pass on schematics. I have an electronics workshop in Germany and have been repairing Aesthetix for 25 years. To date, I have been able to repair every device. Unfortunately also without circuit diagrams.

 

[Reinhard]

BoyDK,
you know that the tube regulators in the power supply ( +600 Volt, -400 Volt ) are only pre-regulators.
There are more regulators in the amplifier, simple MosFet Source followers. Only a resistive divider to the gate and some capacitance at the gate and the output. Regulator for the input stage with 565 Volt, 2 regs for the diffamps at 450 Volt and one reg for the Output stage at 230 Volt. Last a reg for the negative at - 290 Volt.
After a crash in the tube regs often one or more MosFets are burned out.
From my documents (selfmade) the n-channels are MTP4N80E and the p-channel is MTP2P50E.
Maybe that helps.
Reinhard

 

[BoyDK]

BoyDK,
you know that the tube regulators in the power supply ( +600 Volt, -400 Volt ) are only pre-regulators.
There are more regulators in the amplifier, simple MosFet Source followers. Only a resistive divider to the gate and some capacitance at the gate and the output. Regulator for the input stage with 565 Volt, 2 regs for the diffamps at 450 Volt and one reg for the Output stage at 230 Volt. Last a reg for the negative at - 290 Volt.
After a crash in the tube regs often one or more MosFets are burned out.
From my documents (selfmade) the n-channels are MTP4N80E and the p-channel is MTP2P50E.
Maybe that helps.
Reinhard

Thanks Reinhard....... for some more to look into.
The riaa itself has not been taken out of the enclosure yet. I hesitated, since when pluggin it into my system, the usual "tube hiss" (not hum) was present, sounding like all amp sections were indeed active. Just no signal though from input. 99.9% sure, I have fixed all the supply issues. Now I´ll have a closer look at those MosFet´s.
I´ll send you a PM in a couple of minutes !!

 

[OGH]

"After a crash in the tube regs often one or more MosFets are burned out."

The best way to avoid costly repairs is to reduce the need for them...

Should we check the tubes in the p-s and the control unit more often? Is a bad tube crashing regulators and then mosfets a typical cause of Io failure?

 

[Reinhard]

"After a crash in the tube regs often one or more MosFets are burned out."

The best way to avoid costly repairs is to reduce the need for them...

Should we check the tubes in the p-s and the control unit more often? Is a bad tube crashing regulators and then mosfets a typical cause of Io failure?

No, it happens only when you have a dead short in one of the EL34. That can happen even with a new tube.
Had it 5 - 6 times in 20 years. IO and Callisto.

Reinhard

 

[OGH]

OK thank you - it could perhaps have been avoided if the EL34 had been tested in a tube checker?

Are there other 'typical failures' that could perhaps have been prevented, that you have seen?

Thank you this information is important.

 

[oldvinyl]

Should we check the tubes in the p-s and the control unit more often? Is a bad tube crashing regulators and then mosfets a typical cause of Io failure?

My general practice been to replace the tubes after 5,000 hours of powered on usage, or after about 10 years. Also, replace any tube that gets gassy or microphonic. Also, it helps to keep the power supply(s) and phono stage well ventilated. All this is true about any electronic equipment, and especially tube gear. When replacing tubes, only use tubes that have been graded for noise and tested before inserting them into the Io.

In 25 years, I have had one actual electronic component failure in the Io, other than tube wear out. After 10 years, one of the voltage regulator failed. That failure did not affect any other components in the Io.

You can read up on tube reliability and failure modes here: tube failures
Overall, tubes are very reliable.

Also, for all the heat cycling, the number of power cycles and heat dissipation, the Io has been very reliable. Built like the proverbial tank.

It is also a good practice to replace the capacitors in the power supply after 20 years or so. Electrolytic capacitors wear from the aging and heat. This is true in all my tubed equipment.

 

[Kcin]

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do for this as a tube can go catastrophic when you least expect it. There is no protection in the cathodes of the el34's for over current. I seem to recall there were extra fuses in very early Io's that may have been beneficial for this . They still have a spot on the cct board for them. In current models the fuse holder spot is shunted.

The thing that is a drag is that the tube fault cascades to the preamp and can cause more damage.

I've exclusively used real Mullards in my Io for many many years. Even, Mullards can go nuclear from time to time. Sovteks and the like- forget it.

Replacing with new may just cause you problems with infant mortality. We should ask what the expected current draw is on the el34... then we can measure this and monitor it from time to time.

 

[oldvinyl]

From my documents (selfmade) the n-channels are MTP4N80E and the p-channel is MTP2P50E.

That's a pretty good part for the application. From the data sheet:

Motorola TMOS Power MOSFET Transistor Device Data
Designer's Data Sheet
TMOS E-FET
Power Field Effect Transistor
N–Channel Enhancement–Mode Silicon Gate

This high voltage MOSFET uses an advanced termination scheme to provide enhanced voltage–blocking capability without degrading performance over time. In addition, this advanced TMOS E–FET is designed to withstand high energy in the avalanche and commutation modes. The new energy efficient design also offers a drain–to–source diode with a fast recovery time. Designed for high voltage, high speed switching applications in power supplies, converters and PWM motor controls, these devices are particularly well suited for bridge circuits where diode speed and commutating safe operating areas are critical and offer additional safety margin against unexpected voltage transients.

• Robust High Voltage Termination
• Avalanche Energy Specified
• Source–to–Drain Diode Recovery Time Comparable to a Discrete Fast Recovery Diode
• Diode is Characterized for Use in Bridge Circuits
• IDSS and VDS(on) Specified at Elevated Temperature

From the Motorola data sheet, they are spec'ed correctly for a reliable power supply.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do for this as a tube can go catastrophic when you least expect it. There is no protection in the cathodes of the el34's for over current. . . .

The thing that is a drag is that the tube fault cascades to the preamp and can cause more damage.

But does that mean that the speakers are at risk for receiving DC and frying?

 

[oldvinyl]

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do for this as a tube can go catastrophic when you least expect it. There is no protection in the cathodes of the el34's for over current. I seem to recall there were extra fuses in very early Io's that may have been beneficial for this . They still have a spot on the cct board for them. In current models the fuse holder spot is shunted.

The thing that is a drag is that the tube fault cascades to the preamp and can cause more damage.

I've exclusively used real Mullards in my Io for many many years. Even, Mullards can go nuclear from time to time. Sovteks and the like- forget it.

Replacing with new may just cause you problems with infant mortality. We should ask what the expected current draw is on the el34... then we can measure this and monitor it from time to time.

Well in my case, I abandoned the EL34s early on and have only used KT66s in that slot in the power supply. I found factory matched GEC sets from military spec. Upscale Audio had boxes of them a long time ago. They have performed well. But in the circuit - they could have the same failure.

I agree - no way to guarantee and prevent a tube failure. Just trying to help with some sensible suggestions.

Also trying to assuage any fears of imminent disaster.

 

[oldvinyl]

But does that mean that the speakers are at risk for receiving DC and frying?

Need to get back to how tube preamps are designed. That's what coupling capacitors block - any DC.

Those StealthCaps you like the sound of would block any DC component on the Io outputs.

(Now I suppose we could get into failure modes of capacitors too. But only if we are also going to factor in reliability ratings.)

DC would be also blocked by any well designed amp.

 

[Aesthetix]

I would like to thank all of the users for posting their thoughts and experiences with the Io. It is nice to see valuable information being passed around, and heartwarming to see so much passion for the Io!

Questions have been asked about international service. Aesthetix has distribution in over 30 countries, and each distribution partner maintains service facilities and personnel. In some cases these personnel have visited Aesthetix in the USA for extensive factory training, and in other cases I have visited them for training. During these visits we are able to assess technicians' abilities to repair, upgrade and maintain Aesthetix's products, and decide whether to authorize them to perform this work. Factory authorized technicians are located in numerous countries, including Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the EU, several Asian countries, Australia and several other regions as well.

The Io and the Callisto have been in continuous manufacture for approaching 30 years. Each product is available in three different versions (Standard, Signature and Eclipse). Numerous updates and upgrades have been implemented over the years, both for sound quality and for reliability. I am not aware of many products in our industry that have achieved this longevity.

When we are contacted by a third party technician (not factory trained or authorized) wishing to repair an Io, we almost universally advise that the unit be serviced by our distributor or authorized service center for that country or region. Io repairs are rarely simple or easy, and our ability to train a third party technician on the appropriate procedures is severely limited due to the breadth of information required. In repairs done at the factory or at authorized service centers, at the time of a repair, we will advise the customer of required or optional updates and upgrades to extend the life of the product, to improve sound quality and to minimize future repairs. Electronic products approaching 30 years old often have other parts that should be replaced at the same time.

As a consumer when a product is repaired by a third-party technician in contact with the factory, the consumer assumes the repair is done correctly and the product is fully tested. As the manufacturer we have no ability to assess the quality of work of a third-party technician, or of the completeness of repairs. This could result in a future failure that could have been prevented, or even could cause a safety hazard, which, sadly we have seen.

As a small, family-owned company, we are always seeking to improve, both our products and our customer experience. All of us at Aesthetix are honored to be a part of your collective musical journey, and we work hard for the privilege.

Jim White
Aesthetix

Aesthetix
info@aesthetix.net
(805) 529-9901

 

[Aesthetix]

Well.........
Just became a member, and wanted some help with the Io signature version, but after reading all 58 pages in this thread, I´m afraid, there´s not much to have.
Just to clarify, I´m a certified A/V technician, and has been for close to 50 years. And here´s where the story begins.
My longtime friend and fellow enthusiast, living just 10 min. from my residense,
has enjoyed his Io signature for many years. He has been playing for several hours daily, and a couple of years ago, he decided, that it was time for tube-replacement. He contacted the sweedish distributor and put in an order for a complete tube packet. 15 months later, without any response, he gave up. The only explanation he got, was that Aeshetix didn´t reply.
Then about a month ago he called me, almost in tears, that the Io had stopped working. The HT and filament lamps on PSU lighted up slowly as normal, but no sound.
I asked him to bring it, which he did. We took the cover off of the PSU, and the obvious came to sight. Big black burnt spot on one of the EL34 sockets. 5 or 6 traces on the PCB had gone up in smoke.
Have spent a couple of weeks measuring an repairing the PCB, replaced the socket, since it was impossible to clean (deep burn into the ceramic). 4 of the LM317T regulators shorted, small transistors shorted/open, several electrolytics shorted with big burnmarks on them etc etc.
Replaced all tubes in both Io and PSU.
Now it powers up, all filaments glow normally. Connected to my home system, you can hear amplification is active, meaning the tube hiss sounds normal when turning the pre fully up. But still no signal. You can faintly hear music being played when the volume is turned to max., so something is still missing.
That´s when I contacted Aesthetix by e-mail....... twice, since the first email wasn´t replied to in over a week. I also wrote the serial no. which are the same on both riaa and psu, and offered to send pictures to prove ownership (of my friend, of course). Asked them the second time, if it could really be true, that my e-mail didn´t even qualify for a reply. Still nothing.
Then trying to phone them within office hours = "The person at this extension is not available at the moment"......at every call.
The shipping costs (from Denmark anyway) is beyond stupid close to fraud, so unfortunately not an option.
I guess reverse engineering a schematic from the PCB would be possible, if you had nothing else to do for the next couple of months, but this too is not an option, at least for me.
All I can say for now is, that I´m really dissapointed with the way, Aesthetix treat their customers not residents of the US. I would have been happy signing a NDA, just to have a glance at the schematics of the PSU, but not getting my hopes up anymore. My friend is equally dissapointed too, and no matter how good the Io is, it has to go when finally finished.
Should I have missed any info in any post, or if someone has similar experience/solution, I would love to hear.
@Lagonda..... seeing, you´re from Denmark, please PM me with info on who in Sweeden you were mentioning.
Sorry for the loooong post.

BoyDK:

Glenn and I have searched our emails and spam for anything resembling your name, and even all of our emails with .dk and .sw and cannot find anything referencing an Io. Please contact us at info@aesthetix.net or provide your email here and you will be contacted.

Thank you,

Jim White
Aesthetix

 

[BoyDK]

Thank you Jim. Strange about the e-mail.
I´ll be writing you an e-mail later today and send it to both "info@" and
your own personal e-mail.
You´re welcome to contact me on h.ear@cool.dk
Best regards from Denmark.