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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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In Reply to: RE: Oops...time to change that tube posted by pictureguy on June 27, 2023 at 21:27:22:
And all this time, Pictureguy, I thought that my experiences were par for the course with tube gear.But a couple of things to add:
on that Cary SLA70B, that was my very first ever piece of tube gear and there were a lot of things that I should have done differently. I started it out by not providing ideal ventlation (which is not to say that I was roasting it, but I should have positioned it better) and I had it integrated in as the L & R channel amplifier in an early HT application as well as my music system, so it was on a lot of the time & a lot of the time I was playing it loud. Also, it was the SLA70B "Signature" which included a standby switch that kept the heater filaments on, and I literally kept it in standby 24/7 which is something I would not do today.As far as the rectifier tubes, that was the only tube amp I have had that featured rectifier tubes, and although I still own that amp, I just keep it out of nostalgia and as a back up. (Both of my tube preamps use rectifier tubes, and I have experienced no failures with those.)
As for those ARC VTM120s I referred to, I don't know what was up with them. They sounded fantastic when they were up & running--they could rock out or they could whisper sweet & quiet, but I used to grit my teeth & cross my fingers when I flipped the power switches to 'on'. With the term 'ungodly' being relative, I once spent what I considered to be an ungodly sum to buy 8 Tungsol (these were not reissues, these were NOS AMERICAN Tungsols) 6550s from someone who specialized in NOS vintage tubes, and after a short period of time I had to call him & ask him to warranty a couple of them. He didn't seem happy at all about that but he did send me two more. I am not going to say who the tube seller was, but I will paraphrase what he told me, and that was if he knew that I was putting them in an ARC he would not have sold them to me. He told me that he would not sell output tubes for ARCs or VTLs. However, with that typed, I have never read anything on any forums specifically bad about either, and I kind of think that my ARCs were just possessed and I think that's why the owner was selling them. For the same reason I sold them.
As for that set of reissued Mullard EL34s I bought from Viva (originally I typed that I got them from Uncle Kevin, but on second thoughts I realized that it was other tubes I bougfht from Uncle Kevin) that I only got a couple of years out of, before they started acting goofy on me, I had lost a signal cap on one side of that amp, and for whatever reason that my limited understanding of electrical theory does not comprehend, the bias ran away on that side, and I imagine that the tubes on that side got pretty hot. And prior to that happening, I was always running them loud & hard. So their premature end-of-life may not have been on them--it may have been on me and the amp.
And as far as everything else I listed, I wasn't really complaining about it, as, at the time, I just thought those were the normal trials & tribulations of vacuum tubes.
Edits: 06/28/23 06/28/23
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- RE: Oops...time to change that tube - immatthewj 13:45:44 06/28/23 (0)
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