Also i did notice the same tube was taking more than 2 seconds to fully light up after powering on, while the left tube will take just over a second to fully power up...i assume there was some fault and tube needed replacement.
Finally over a month ago I received my new military grade 12sn7 pair; after carefully cleaning and protecting them with deoxit both my speaker were dead quiet, but to my surprise there was no difference after powering on the preamp...the left tube will slowly light up and then the right will follow. Then I looked at the circuit board and realised that the path from the power caps to the right tube was about 3 times longer than tube on the left... reason why this tube will always take much longer to fully light up...No issues at all.
After receiving my Total Contact I went on to paste...first my power cables, power conditioner...grounds...Speakers cables...then components...
Took tubes out and slowly pasted them...i did the same to the legs of the fuse inside my pre amp...and to both ground/return barrels/connectors of the DC power cable than conects my pre to the outboard 12v. Linear power supply.
Being concern about the risk of pasting the tubes I didn't want to even look when I pushed the power ON button...(Heart raising moment)... follow on by a Oh my GOD moment..! (By NOW you guys probably know what is coming)...to my luck wasn't a shorted tube but...BINGO! Both tubes were fully ON within a second...no delay at all...as bright as EVER...
I was sort of expecting to hear the improvement...what I NEVER expected was to be able to see it...BEAT THAT :)

