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In Reply to: RE: Tube/Valve Lifespan posted by immatthewj on December 10, 2020 at 18:35:27
Recently I just heard the exact same symptoms as you described for bad tubes, when listening to my Transcendent Sound OTL tube amp.
Sure enough, I bought a quad of tested and matched EL 509s from the bay (a tube seller with almost 2000, 100% feedbacks) and installed them today.
After settling in and rebiasing a couple times, the amp is sounding great again.
The symptoms you described match perfectly with the issues I was hearing...
If art interprets our dreams, the computer executes them in the guise of programs!
Follow Ups:
Yes, for all the stupid stuff I will spend money on without batting an eye, I don't know why I stay in denial with output tubes for so long. I would find a spare set truly handy, for the exact reasons that the OP suggested.My system was sounding so horrendous that after the last time I listened to it (about two weeks ago), I hadn't turned it on since. The USPS has been running like the pony express lately & also without any kind of decent tracking, so I was just about ready to haul my other amp down & set it up. That was more work than I was up to though (those tubes should be here today, I kept thinking) . . . .
Oh well, abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.
February 26, 2020: "You have fifteen people, and the fifteen within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero,"
Edits: 12/10/20
I'm lucky I have two dern good backup amps. A Musical Fideltiy Class A A1 (2008 version) and a QUAD 909.
Really everyone who runs a tube amp should probably have a decent backup.
I am keeping the QUAD and waiting for the Magnepan LRS to be available. I want to try out planars and the QUAD should drive them acceptably.
If art interprets our dreams, the computer executes them in the guise of programs!
I still have my first tube amp. (Your first tube amp is like your first [fill in blank], right?)Anyway, it is a Cary SLA70 Signature with two 6550s per-side that I bought in '94.
Being as it was my first, I truly didn't have a clue, & when the first set of outputs started losing their bloom, I felt it was just me, & I stayed in denial way too long. Back then I was in a life period where I was really mesmerized by the sound of Margo Timmin's voice (female vocalist for the Cowboy Junkies) & when it got to the point that I just could not bare to crank "Sweet Jane" up to bigger than life levels, I called Kirk Owens, from Cary Audio, & asked, "What's up? Do I need new output tubes? Don't they last forever?"Probably, & no they don't, he replied. The amp came with Svetlanta 6550Bs & it must have been about at that time that the Svetlanta 6550c came out, as that is what Kirk sold me.
Anyhow, the new tubes came & I put in The Cowboy Junkies & things just didn't sound like I wanted them to. So I called Kirk back up & told him what I was hearing (or not hearing). He sounded a bit perplexed but The amp was still under warranty so he said, "send it to us." He called me after he had had the amp for a bit & told me that he had it on the scope & had been playing it all day & it sounded good & read good . . . . I asked, "Do tubes maybe need to break in?"
Haha.
But, you see, this was my first tube amp & when I fired it up the first time I had nothing to compare it to, & as it gradually got better by degrees, I didn't even realize what was happening.
So, as long as Kirk had the amp anyway, I had him put the oil filled caps that Cary & Cary dealers were always raving about.
So all was not lost.
Cary used to have great customer service back then.
7-5-2019 "Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets' red glare, it had nothing but victory."
Edits: 12/11/20
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