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What's likely to happen when an 845 tube fails?

I've been running tube gear as far back as I can remember and other than a CJ mono amp blowing a 6550 and requiring factory service many years ago, I've never had any serious issues. Sure, tubes age and you eventually replace them or on a rare occasion, a tube blows, maybe you replace a fuse, then you're back up and running, but that's been it.

Atma-Sphere MA-1 monos and MP-1 pre currently hold pride of place and I'm also very fond of a Cary SLI-80 F1 all triode that I run in another system. But... I've been itching to try a pair of deHavilland Aries 845-G SET monos and am wondering how much grief those big, high voltage 845's might cause me?

In the case of "catastrophic failure", is it likely to do serious damage to the amp? Worse yet, how 'bout my speakers? Any comments from those having personal experience with 845's or 211's would be appreciated.

Regards!
128x128rfogel8
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,249 posts
 
Bob,
"Married with children", I understand all too well(but is`nt it wonderful). I must say your speakers were very impressive, open, transparent,natural and full of life.

Regarding the Dehavillands I`ll admit I`m very curious to hear them in your fine system vs your Atma-Spheres(two sucessful but different approaches). You have your priorities in order,but if you ever get around to it.....
Regards,
trelja
3,223 posts
 
Rfogel8, "there's no substitute for good amplification, especially with speakers as revealing as the C's."

You know, Bob, you're absolutely right.

As time continues to pass, I find it crushing that technologies Bud Fried evangelized like true TL midrange loading, where the music simply flies out of the speakers in a way that makes so many others sound like they're running in peanut butter, and the incredibly wide degree of tuning ZETA provides continue to disappear into the ether.
einsteindisguised
2 posts
 
I am a longterm (>10years) happy owner of Audion 845 monoblocks and, after about a year of searching for optimal floor standing speakers for my listening room and amps, I ended up with Coincident Super Eclipses - with which I also have been extremely happy.
Some years ago I experimented (with some ignorance) with some KR845s and had early problems with tube flashover and blown components before I had the amps modified - took a couple of goes - to optimise them for the KR tubes, which were a superb improvement over the Billington audio ones they were supplied with - particularly in the bass. I have lived with the same tubes all this time and am still delighted with the sound of the system (BAT VK40SE preamp used not exactly as intended - into SET power amps) but now face a dilemma since I don't have a spare pair of KR845s. Do I try and source new (or NOS) KR845s, with all the bad stories about tube failure and guarantees not being honoured, or should I have the amps returned to original spec and replace the tubes with something like the PSVANE option?
Interested to hear from anyone on this but particularly 213Cobra and Israel Blume.
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