AYON KT-SX Tube quality (failure rate?)


I bought a new/demo ("was only played at CES this Jan 2016...") AYON TRITON III from the US distributer this January.

Within 3 weeks 2 of the 8 KT88-SX tubes either expired or the amp complained about the tube. The vendor said: "90 days on new tubes..." ...which meant I was out of luck given his logic. New tubes cost around $180 or so.

I have either spoken with other Ayon owners on this or other forums, in private (after posting about Ayon) or when seeking to buy these tubes from them.

Guess what?

They have had the same failure rate.

Please weigh in: I am relatively new (1 year) to tube gear and have no idea if I should expect more monthly replacements. (I bought 3 matched quads of new Gold Lion KT88s, but the Ayons sound quite good to me, I just am appalled at the failure rates I experienced or heard about.)
128x128vicweast

Showing 1 response by swampwalker

If the tubes are branded Ayon they are certainly re-badged OEM tubes.  Seems like Ayon must have bought a bad batch of tubes and did not QC them.  Either that or the circuit runs the tubes so hard that they are prone to premature failure.  As to your general question, no properly designed amp would require monthly output tube replacement.