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In Reply to: RE: Oops...time to change that tube posted by Byrd69 on June 25, 2023 at 16:25:19
This will fall into the TMI category:1) in my first tube amp (Cary SLA 70) a set of 4 Svetlanta 6550Bs (original with amp) in the mid 90s due to the bass turning crappy & the trebles getting edgy
2) in the same amp a pair of 6SL7s because the amp was starting to sound crappy again, this was later on in the 90s
3) over the course of owning that amp I've replaced at least 3 rectifier tubes because they were flashing or arcing on start up or actually quit working (but they were all Sovtecs)
4) in '99 I picked up a 2cond hand SLP90 that actually had a nonfunctional Telefunken 12au7 in it (must have been one of Andy's--they all had red/green nail polish on top of them) when I took it home from the dealer to audition
5) same preamp: the system went into storage for 10 years or so & when I brought it out in Fall of '17 it sounded good but after a while it started popping & crackling & I troubleshot it down to one of the 6 replacement 12au7s I bought from Andy, so I bought a pair of Phillips 12au7s from Cary & one of them went microphonic after a short period of time
6) in (I think it was) '97 or '98 I bought a pair of second hand ARC VTM120s & I lost count of how many 6550s that those amps took down (or as ARC claimed, were taking down the amp)
7) in spring of '01 I replaced those ARCs with a new Cary V-12 and within a few monthes (I seem to remember it was prior to 9/11) one of the Ruby EL34s went south
8) the Cary V12 was part of the system that came out of storage in '17 & when I put it back into service I bought a dozen reissued Mullard EL34s from Viva (however this was not failure related, I just felt that the original Rubys were sounding tired) and Viva's Russian Mullatrds did not last long at all. Bias was doing weird things on one side--however, this tube anomaly may have been due to some operator malfeasances/errors. I replaced them (in the spring of '20, I think) with a dozen reissued Tungsols from Jim McShane and they have held up absolutely excellently
9) I think it was about two years ago that I bought a preowned SLP-05 from Cary, and I got the deal of a lifetime on several pairs of vintage SN7s/VT231s and I completely fell in love with a pair of RCA black glass VT231s in the balanced input sockets (while running the EHs that Cary provided in the other 4 sockets) and I liked those RCAs so much that one night when I was drinking & surfing ebay I found some guy from France selling a sextet of RCA blackglass VT231s that I thought, "wouldn't 6 of those tubes sound great!" so I bought them & not long after I had them in, I lost a channel, and sure enough, two of those tubes from France were cold, so I moved some tubes around and had 4 of the tubes from France in the phase splitter sockets with that first pair I alluded to in the balanced sockets, and . . . you guessed it . . . after a while I lost a channel and two more of those tubes from France were cold . . . so I put the remaining two operational tubes from France in storage, went back to configuring the preamp with the first pair of RCA VT231s in the balanced sockets and the EHs Cary sent it out with in the 4 phase splitter sockets.
Edits: 06/27/23 06/27/23 06/27/23 06/27/23 06/27/23 06/28/23Follow Ups:
If not for bad luck you might have none at all.
Leaving out tubes that had hissy fits or rushing, I've had about a half dozen fail dead while in service. The last one was a Sovtek 6922 in the cathode follower spot of the phono of my CAT SL1. Had a Mullard branded EZ81 die in my old Counterpoint SA3000. The rest I can recall were RCA/GE/Sylvania 6GE5's in my Acoustat servos. There was three or four of those, but they all happened during the shakeout period after the amps were updated and put into service. Turned out the sockets were toast and causing arcing and a red-plate. Had new sockets installed and the problem disappeared.
Sorry you had such rotten luck with those Froggy RCA's.
. . . "Leaving out tubes that had hissy fits or rushing,"
but I'd have to think that those tubes would meet OP's criteria for "diminishing performance"?
'Diminishing performance' is sufficiently broad to cover hissy fits I think.
In which case, easily triple my earlier count. Lots of poorly made noval tubes that just didn't cut it over the years.
"I'm a-picking . . ."
"And I'm a-grinning!"I've often thought the same thing, but on the big things, the things that count, I guess I've been pretty lucky. I spent my misguided younger years trying to become some kind of self-fullfilling prophecy. I remember hearing the song "James Dean" on KSHE and then buying the "On The Border" LP because I thought that "too fast to live/too young to die" was an ideal to strive for.
But 40 years later, or there abouts, and I am still here.Anyway, I don't know what was up with those RCA VT231s from France. To begin with, I thought my new-to-me preamp had taken a crap. I don't really have a grasp on electrical theory, but I am assuming that it was not both of the tubes for one channel that went bad (TWICE!) it must have been one tube failing and then the other socket wasn't getting power? Anyway, I did not experiment to try to figure out if (TWICE!) I lost one tube or both tubes (TWICE!) for one channel, the experience made me nervous about screwing up my new-to-me preamp, so I just (TWICE!) put the pair of tubes that wasn't functioning in a box. Anyway, what I learned from that is that I won't buy tubes off Ebay anymore.
But other than that, things are good for me in the 6sn7 world. I hope all is well with you.
Edits: 06/28/23 06/28/23
I'm a little judge, here, maybe, But I'd guess you and tubes need to take a time out.
I can't even fathom how much $$ (inflation adjusted) you spent over the years keeping all your tube gear working properly....
One thing? Rectifier tubes can mostly be replaced with SS and a time delay relay. Does that work for you or does the magic of tubes extend to the rectifier as well?
I'm looking at the VTA Monobloc M125 but would only go that way with the SS rectifier and such a relay. I'm not certain the rectifier tube (5AR4) can handle all the demands......
Too much is never enough
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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