Anyone Here Ever Purchased A Tube Tester?

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.

I have several Hickok testers as well as several Sencore testers. My hands down choice for go/no-go testing is a Sencore, with its grid leakage function. I have an ARC Anniversary pre as well as Atmasphere amps. My 6550’s usually get about 2500 hours and the 6h30 about 6000 hours before they indicate bad on the grid leakage test and require replacement. ARC recommends replacement at 2000/4000hours respectively. 6nsp can also be subbed for the 6h30 if you want to try rolling. I wrote down my various tube settings on a piece of paper…tube lookup in the tables each time is no longer an issue. Grid leakage should be done after a 15 minute warmup period or so or the indication will not be representative or even close. Same with emissions or any other test but especially the grid leakage test. 6h30 can be tested using 6dj8 settings for go/no-go testing which my main focus is…Hickok has additional dial setting which I don’t have in front of me…

I just think you leave yourself ’blind’ without a simple inexpensive tester.

For most of us, we don’t know detailed measurements. When something is amiss, quickly check tube: short? strength? strength matched to other ’matching’ tubes?

Buy new or used tubes, test them, supposedly matched tubes, test them.

IF you are tempted by the simple type, like the Accurate 257, I will have my friend check the booklet to verify it can test your tube types.

I look for shorts, and strength on the meter, and if strength matched. As I said, my Accurate Strength always matched the big heavy Jackson’s results, so I gave the Jackson away.

While it's nice to know how strong a tube is, it even more important to test for internal shorts .   I always test the filament and test for shorts before checking emissions.   

For that reason alone it's worth having one if you have several pieces of tube gear.    Don't use your Amp as a tube tester