Tube amp repair recommendations - San Diego?

* Received a call from Mike yesterday 8/31/09, as he promised. How many service shops have you worked with that have follow through like this?
* Amp status updates - couple of original diodes went out; transformers and tubes all fine; one on/off switch went out; biases checked and were fine; mono switch on one amp was out
* Mike is going let them run for awhile and check the amps on a spectrum analyzer
* He expects to have these amps ready for pickup Wed/Thurs this week
* No extra / unusual findings to drive ticket markup
* Very very reasonable price for the work is all I can say
* I will give an update once I get the amps back and run them in the system

* Picked up my amps yesterday, Thursday; 6 days after dropping off
* I have one amp already plugged in and warming up for 24 hours.
* Played some of my records through it. (Sota/ETII/Sumiko,AudioResearch SP14 pre, Dyna --> Janzen electrostat low boys). It is great hearing these amps again in my system.
* Mike was a pleasure to work with. When I picked up the Dynas he received and was working on a relatively rare BOSE amp from the mid 1970s. He said this is the 2nd one he has ever seen/worked on in his career. The BOSE amp reminded me of an early Mark Levinson; Mike had the amp splayed open. Mike definitely works on some interesting equipment.
* I can not say enough positive things about Mike's timeliness, honesty, service craftsmanship and service cost reasonableness; a gem/keeper service provider.
* Yes I would recommend and use him again. No doubt
* I am going to take two of my Dyna Pas3x for a tuneup before I sell these preamps.

Stuogawa, I'm glad Mike worked out for you. I'm considering sending him an amp which no one out this way can help me with. It's a seventies vintage AEA A620 350wpc monster. I feel though if anyone could fix it he's the one. Thanks for the updates.

* Dropped off my Conrad Johnson PV 1 preamp to Mike about 3 weeks ago.

http://www.conradjohnson.com/It_just_sounds_right/a-PV1.html

* PV 1 stopped working.

* Mike had never worked on a PV 1 and did not have schematic.

* Traced problem to two main caps failing.

* Dropped PV 1 on a Monday and got it back that Thursday.

* All tube system (PV 1 and Dyna ST 70s) sounds tubey groovy!

* Again very reasonable repair cost and timely service.

* What I have begun to appreciate with Mike is that he will tell you right up front if he is too busy to accept more work. He is a one man shop and only accepts work that he can complete within what appears 2 weeks time. I have been fortunate because I am close by and can drop off my equipment if he finishes work up earlier.

* Started getting intermittent static discharge noises from the Dyna ST 70s. Occurs after about 15 to 30 minutes of warm up time.

* Issue characterized as if a build up of electricity is occurring and then intermittently discharges and sounds like a loose connector through the speaker.

* Spoke with Mike and his initial reaction was that the 7199 tubes were probably failing.

* I purchased a pair of NOS RCA 7199s from Tubesandmore.com

* Received and installed 7199s this week. Intermittant discharge still occurring.

* Swapped in my Audio Research SP 14 and Conrad Johnson PV 1 to test the Dyna ST 70s. Intermittant discharge still occurring.

* To ensure the Audio Research SP 14 and Conrad Johnson PV 1 were not introducing the discharge, I put the SP 14 and PV 1 in front of my Audio Research D115 solid state amp. No intermittent discharge occurring.

* Spoke with Mike today (9/5/09). He said drop them off this afternoon and let's solve the problem.