Topic: Tube Failure Sucks

[Nick Culbreth]

One of my Amperex 6DJ8s died, I'm pissed.   

Thanks for letting me vent.

[BobW]

      All tubies weep at the passing of another Old Stock soldier.....  +

[carlbeck]

I lost three this year, all at the same time. $340.00 later I was up & running again, OUCH!!!!!!!

[scervin]

Never had this problem with SS.      jk   

That does suck, got any extras around the house?  Might want to stock up!

[pfife]

This was one of the reasons I decided to go a different direction.  I loved the tube sound, don't get me wrong, but I never put MP3's through it, b/c I didn't want to waste tube life on MP3s.  But, for many listening purposes, MP3's do have their place (just background listening, lets say) - so I felt that I couldn't maximize the versatility of my playback system w/ a tube amp...

[Tim]

I'm very lucky that the tubes that I like best in my system also happen to be pretty inexpensive...

nothing more annoying than settling into the chair and losing a tube though

[pfife]

I had a lot of cognitive dissonance when I had my tube amp... I was always worried about wasting tube life on inferior recordings/albums etc.

[Tim]

get those transistors out of here

[Craig T]

you've got me worried....

any recommendations for KT88's?  nothing too expensive or hard to find.  I need a quad.

[Nick Culbreth]

Never had this problem with SS.      jk   

That does suck, got any extras around the house?  Might want to stock up!

Unfortunately it took awhile to find the pair I had and the only other source I've found is charging $140 per tube which is a little too steep for me.  I replaced the A frames with a pair of Amperex 6DJ8s from the Bugleboy era, which sounds good but not quite as good as the A frames.  Due to the cost and increasing rarity of quality NOS 6DJ8 tubes I've decided to upgrade my headphone amp rather than buying more tubes.

And for all you solid state guys, the tube sound is worth the added hassles. 

[carlbeck]

Let's not forget but we are talking about tube life that is in the hundreds or thousands of hours, that is ALOT of listening. Also when they actually do come up with an amp that sounds JUST like tubes, not similar then I will switch 

[BobW]

you've got me worried....

any recommendations for KT88's?  nothing too expensive or hard to find.  I need a quad.

EH KT-90s

[Tim]

Carl - you have BAT gear right?

[carlbeck]

Yes, I have a VK-60, I am considering adding another to Bi-Amp but may add a pre instead.