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Hi fellow inmates,
According to ARC they test & burn in tubes for 48 hours in their proprietary tube testing equipment. Will these parameters improve the performance and reliability of these tubes from ARC? Is the price difference justified compared to the other tube vendors? Do other tube vendors do the same / test parameters ?
Thanks in advance,
Mondial
Follow Ups:
nt
"I know just enough to get into trouble. But not enough to get out of it."
Analogplanet Visits Audio Research Corporation. Part 1
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvL9FNuPwkE
Trouble with that is the tube isn't new anymore. May cause the flashing to brown over. Many people want the pleasure of watching the tube age. Six of one half dozen of another.
Will these parameters improve the performance and reliability of these tubes?
No.
At best, they can indicate the performance, or reliability....not improve it.
"I can't compete with the dead" (Buck W. 2010)
"$45 gets them out the door tomorrow. $50 gets them out the door yesterday" (Byrd 2016)
I don't totally agree. It will definitely catch some cases of "infant mortality" that otherwise would occur after the tube was sent to the customer. That is a positive step in improved reliability (and minimizing customer hassle)!And I will also say that it's not only the number of hours burned in, but the number of thermal cycles the tube experiences. We all know how tubes often fail during the first moments after the tube is turned on. That's why in my process there are multiple on-cool down-off cycles.
So it is a dilemma - you can burn up a significant amount of a tube's life with extensive burn in, yes. But you will also catch some tubes with issues before they are put into someone's gear!
Edits: 02/14/17 02/14/17
Again, Improve is the key word. Burning in will not improve any aspect of the tube. It may reveal less than optimal performance, or other operational concerns, but there's no improvements to be realized.
"I can't compete with the dead" (Buck W. 2010)
"$45 gets them out the door tomorrow. $50 gets them out the door yesterday" (Byrd 2016)
If eliminating some infant mortality isn't an improvement in the tube reliability then what is it?
You can't improve a tube's reliability by removing lesser tubes around it.
Improvement in reliability comes from improvements in manufacturing.
"I can't compete with the dead" (Buck W. 2010)
"$45 gets them out the door tomorrow. $50 gets them out the door yesterday" (Byrd 2016)
You're grasping at straws IMHO. While any individual tube can't be changed once it's made, the overall quality of any production run of tubes is raised by eliminating tubes with issues.Why do you think automotive quality ratings are measured by the number of problems per 100 vehicles?
Quality is judged by evaluation/analysis of a reasonably sized sample of the product being evaluated. By weeding out problematic items from the sample the overall quality level goes up. And any individual consumer is more likely to have a satisfactory experience with the product as a result.
Finally, think of it this way. If a customer buys a quad of tubes from me and one fails, is it accurate to say that tubes I sell fail at a 25% rate? Well, if you limit it to tubes sold to him - yes. But not when the sample is larger because only a few purchasers have a 25% failure rate. Most have a 0% rate! Which means that the more infant mortality prone tubes I weed out the better the odds of any given purchaser having a 0% failure rate - THE BETTER THE OVERALL QUALITY for any given purchaser. That's why proper testing and all that go with it - including burn-in/run-in - is one path to improved quality.
That's all I have to say on this.
Edits: 02/16/17
Say all you want, or not, it makes no difference to me. Different views. Different news.
"I can't compete with the dead" (Buck W. 2010)
"$45 gets them out the door tomorrow. $50 gets them out the door yesterday" (Byrd 2016)
Well, it is interesting and of some importance to me what you say since reasoned debate often can clarify an issue - or at least encourage further thought.
I'm genuinely sorry that you find it uninvolving.
Now I GOTTA run!
...I've run into a lot of Russian power tubes whose bias was unstable if used out-of-the-box. 24hr burn in at low current stabilized bias for about 90% of them.
Tweaking the bias every 10 minutes during the first 12-24 hours of run-in is part of the fun of owning tube amps.
And then, as a bonus, you might get lucky and find that one of your 'platinum matched' tubes refuses to hold bias even after 48 hours of use and you have to decide on sending back all 4-8 matched tube for replacement or just the one that won't hold bias which. of course, means your 'platinum matched' set is now of a lesser grade of valuable metal.
Like maybe 'brass matched'?
the quality of the tubes the customer receives from the dealer.
That might be the most important 'aspect' of tube quality as it relates to this discussion.
The 48 hour burn will cull out most early death tubes, they should also hold test and matching values better. It costs about $2 to do. However, any good tube re-seller will burn in power tubes.
Burn-in does not do anything to the tube that running it in equipment will not do.
It does not change the tube in any positive way compared to normal operation in equipment. It will, however, use up 48 hours of the tubes life. On a 2000 hour tube, that is 2.5% of its life.
This process allows the selection and individual measured characteristics of the tube to be less variable early in the tube life.
If you buy a new piece of ARC equipment the tubes will have closer to 100 hrs on them.
48 hrs burn-in on the tubes before they are tested.
48 more hrs after the equipment is built, the unit is left powered up for 48 hrs burn in time.
Next it goes to Warren where he listens to it. If Warren hears something he doesn't like it goes back on the bench for testing.
Below is a great video to watch on the ARC factory if you have not already seen it.
Part one of two parts.
Hi Jea,
ARC also said that their equipment sounds best when it reaches 600 hours. Ive not experience this breaking in period since I buy my ARC preowned. Thats why when I buy preowned late model ARC, it has a tube hour counter. They usually advise to replace the power tubes when they reach 2000 hrs while w/ small signal tubes at 4000 hrs. But I dont purchase tubes from them. I get them from one of our sponsors Jim McShane. Im from overseas ( the Philippines) and our small group have not had any catastrophic tube failures so far. I ordered tubes for my friend's REF 750 ( KT 150's ) , REF 250 ( KT 120's ) Classic 150 (KT88's) , VTL Siegfried ( 6550's & KT 88's ) , so far so good ! Is it as good sonically as the one from ARC , that I dont know .
Mondial
'Is it as good sonically as the one from ARC , that I dont know .'
Easy question to answer: yes. A tube is a tube. There is nothing magical or particularly special about ARC's burn-in and testing process. Their process is no better than say the burn-in and screening you get from Jim McShane.
I have purchased tubes for my ARC gear for over a decade from Jim McShane. The quality is excellent it does not get any better. I would say his burn-in, screening and testing get no better. His matching of power tubes is actually better, tighter than ARC matched power tubes.
Bottom line is a Soviet 6550WE is going to sound the same from Jim or ARC. The only difference is ARC will charge $90 for the tube and Jim will charge around $30.
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