I have had tube amps and tube preamp now for 5 years, i bought the pieces used on the 'Gon, i have replaced 2 sets of power tubes in the amps and one set of small signals in the pre, all in all they have been extremely low maintenance except for the occasional biasing on the amps, this coming from a guy who had only Solid State experience in the past.
Can you help me feel better about tube equipment?
A few months ago, I bought my first piece of tube gear. A hybrid integrated amp by Antique Sound Lab. Sounds great with my Von Schweikert VR-2s and Rega Apollo Cd.
Recently, I was listening to my system, and found that the imaging was off, not broad nor well-defined like it had been before. So I checked the biasing meter which is built-in on the ASL integrated and discovered that something was wrong with the integrated amp. The meter didn't register for two of the four tubes. From what I gather, capacitors may have blown due to a surge or something like that. I haven't found yet as I just sent the unit in to be fixed under warranty.
Here is my concern: If my ASL didn't have the meter, I may not have figured out that something was wrong with the unit. I might have just thought the unit or entire system sounded bad. Again, the tubes were all are working, music played, it just sounded bad because two of the four tubes had been incapacitated, so to speak. I'd like to consider other pieces of tube gear, perhaps some that self-bias. However, how can one distinguish between a bad sounding piece of equipment and one that is only operating on a fraction of the tubes? For example, if I bought a self-baising amp with lots of tubes, how would I know if two capacitors went out and my amp was running with all but two tubes? Does that make sense?
Thanks for helping me feel, hopefully, better about owning tube gear.
Recently, I was listening to my system, and found that the imaging was off, not broad nor well-defined like it had been before. So I checked the biasing meter which is built-in on the ASL integrated and discovered that something was wrong with the integrated amp. The meter didn't register for two of the four tubes. From what I gather, capacitors may have blown due to a surge or something like that. I haven't found yet as I just sent the unit in to be fixed under warranty.
Here is my concern: If my ASL didn't have the meter, I may not have figured out that something was wrong with the unit. I might have just thought the unit or entire system sounded bad. Again, the tubes were all are working, music played, it just sounded bad because two of the four tubes had been incapacitated, so to speak. I'd like to consider other pieces of tube gear, perhaps some that self-bias. However, how can one distinguish between a bad sounding piece of equipment and one that is only operating on a fraction of the tubes? For example, if I bought a self-baising amp with lots of tubes, how would I know if two capacitors went out and my amp was running with all but two tubes? Does that make sense?
Thanks for helping me feel, hopefully, better about owning tube gear.