Anyone Here Ever Purchased A Tube Tester?


Once or twice a day a tube sputters for a brief second in my Audio Research Reference DAC. The Reference DAC is connected directly to my amplifier and it also serves as my preamp. Visually, all of the tubes look fine. Visually, I can’t tell which tube may be bad.

The tubes are:     (4) 6H30, plus (1) 6550C and (1) 6H30 in power supply

Have any of you ever purchased a tube tester to test your tubes? If so, what tube tester are you using?

128x128mitch4t

I had one briefly that had three more knobs than the space station cockpit. I sold it to somebody hopefully smarter and more committed than me, which would not have been hard..,

When I started playing with 4 pin DHT and rectifiers I bought a Hickok 800.   It looks like it should be in a museum, it's that nice.  It was serviced not too long ago and have saved me from using a bad tubemore that once.  It paid for itself by not allowing tubes to damage my gear.   

I use a cheap vintage tester, Superior TD65 purchased on eBay and it gives me what I need to know and works fine. I highly suggest anyone with tube gear get one. It doesn’t have to be a very expensive one, but one that will tell you if a tube is bad, weak, or not. 

Transcendental Sound used to sell a kit which I built and have been using for several decades. I can't imagine living without it.

@larryi I'm jealous. Been wanting the Amplitrex for a while now. Certainly the best currently available.

AMPLITREX AT1000

I bought a Beck Elektroakustik RM-1 tube tester in 2015. It was customized for the main tube types I use in my system. It works well and the support is good. However it does not test the tubes for background noise.