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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.
lenkevy

Showing 1 response by musicslug

musicslug
430 posts
 
most tube equipment failures aren't subtle: loud noises, arcing, multiple fuses blowing, no sound at all, etc.

that may not sound reassuring, but, as you see when you look inside tube amps, there really aren't that many things (other than the tubes) to fail - caps are a common one. they're usually simple fixes. if you're going to own tube gear, it's useful to know of a local tech who knows tubes.

the bottom line here is that you passed the test: you knew something was wrong. subtlety comes in when it comes to the gradual aging of tubes; if you have a non-auto bias amp, you probably want to check the bias every 6 months or so.
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