Audio Research Ref Series Hours Reset

Well, there are two main reasons for replacing Amp or Preamp tubes...

1st... when tubes life reaches the end...

2nd... when we demand better sound or we want to experiment, so we swap the market tubes with better ones, usually New Old Stock(NOS)...

Audio Research Ref3 and Ref5 Reference Series Preamplifiers, are not only Top Class Sound Components, but also offer some extreme useful facilities and among them a very smart feature, the TUBES HOURS COUNTER...

When the time comes to replace the tubes, regardless any of the above reasons, we have to RESET TUBES HOURS COUNTER to ZERO...

Audio Research says in the product manual, that this has to be done by an authorized person, but this is a myth... If someone knows how to replace the tubes, it's very easy to reset the TUBES HOURS COUNTER also...

This is the way to do... When we have finished with the tubes replacement, we leave the pre case opened(we do not place the cover), we plug the power cord and switch the power on...

We must be VERY CAREFUL NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING inside the pre...

After we have tested that new tubes working well by leaving the power on for 1 or 2 hours and getting sound, with the preamp ON we just press once very carefully with care NOT TOUCHING anything else inside the amp, THE TUBES HOURS RESET button and we immediately get a message on the display : HOURS 0 ...

That button is located on the upper right corner of the display circuit located behind the front panel...

Here is the AUDIO RESEARCH REF3 TUBES HOURS RESET to ZERO BUTTON

Αnd from a different aspect