Sounds too complicated for me. Think I'll stay with a SS upgrade.
Question on Tube Swapping and Biasing
First time tube swapper. I’ve had my Luxman MQ-88use and CL-38use preamp for about 5 years. They sound fine, but it’s good to have a backup set of tubes. So I bought a matched set of 4 Gold Lion KT88 tubes and replaced the stock JJ tubes.
So far so good, everything sounds good, and hopefully even better after breaking in.
Should I be concerned about not setting the bias for these new tubes? And how would I go about doing that? The Luxman manual says nothing about this.
Some online sources recommend having an audio professional bias the tubes, but to my limited understanding the bias is affected by the actual current going into the amp, so having a servicer bias it at a shop might not be the optimal way to go.
Could I hurt the amp or the tubes my not properly biasing them? Or am I overthinking all of this?
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- 24 posts total
Getting ideal performance, prolonged life, .... may be nice, but ’not ideal’ is still ok, unless they glow too bright, seem too hot. Not even knowing bias existed, I listened to tubes for many years, this thing had more tubes than you could shake a stick at, I inherited it in 1973, age 25 https://www.audiogon.com/systems/11420 Fisher 80AZ Mono blocks. Never biased them for 50 years! I had them worked on, resistors replaced, perhaps they were biased by others and I never knew it. I Have 3 Fisher 500C Tube Receivers, had one Fisher 800C, used them for years, have my own tube tester, and a large collection of new and used tubes. replaced old weak tubes, ones with shorts, ... with good used or new Never a problem, nothing ever glowed too much or burned obviously hot I bought a Cayin A88T tube amp on eBay, designed for KT88’s, came with 6550s. Did the seller re-bias for the 6550’s when he put them in? I read about bias, it has internal adjusters, no meters, so I gave it to Steve Leung at VAS (former Cayin USA Rep) to re-bias for the KT88’s. I hear no difference, they never were suspicious, and, who knows, perhaps the original factory bias was better for my KT88’s than the 6550’s it came with. Don’t let too much knowledge keep you from enjoying your Luxman. I think I wasted both time and money having my Cayin biased. |
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