On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 05:21:03 +1100, Trevor Wilson
wrote:

On 31/12/2019 4:45 am, wrote:
Well, I peeked inside the amp and took off the transformer covers.
There are indeed 3 transformers. From what folks have said I half
expected to find some sort of weights under the xmfr covers because
the amp is so heavy. Nope, just copper and iron.
Inside the amp are no solid state devices but for the Bluetooth
module, which connects to the input through a relay. So the amp
switches automatically between inputs depending on whether the
Bluetooth module is recieving a signal.
On to the tubes. I turned the amp on again last night and just
listened. After a while, maybe 45 minutes, I heard a crackle. Looking
carefully at the tubes I noticed that one of the EL34 tubes was
glowing brighter at the top than the other EL34 tube. There is a mica
disc in the top of the tube and a little of the filament protrudes
through a small hole in the mica. And this is what was glowing
brighter.
I tapped the tube and heard the noise coming out of just the left
speaker. Tapping the right side tube produced no noise.
I though that maybe one tube was getting more voltage than the
other so I waited for things to cool down and then swapped tubes. The
same tube got brighter but was now on the right side. So the tube must
be bad because the problem travels with the tube and the same tube
gets brighter no matter which side it is plugged into.
So, anybody have suggestions on tubes? I'm not an audiophile. My
hearing isn't good enough. I don't think matched pair tubes would make
any difference to me ears. But I can hear well enough so a fairly high
quality tube set would be desirable. And I do think I should get a
pair so that they will hopefully last tghe same amount of time.
Thanks,
Eric


**Sure. Dump it and buy a decent solid state amp. Almost anything will
be far more reliable and better sounding. Why bother with a cheap,
Chinese tube amp?
Because I like it. It sounds good. People spontaneously comment on
how good it sounds. Not how it sounds almost as good as a solid state
amp. And I like tubes.
Are you grumpy today?
Eric