I feel your pain. I was recently gifted a pair of Rogue M-180’s with one needing repair. But I still wanted to see what happened. I changed tubes , tried different things and two things would happen. One was a horrible super loud droning that I feared would blow my speaker. The other thing that happened was the music would play with a very very slight harmonic distortion. Also turning the amp off caused noise. I shipped them both to Rogue for diagnosis and repair. The issue was a single resistor in the circuit of the single 12AX7 phase tube. However I was told that the bridge rectifiers in both amps were weak and I should repair. My solution was to spring for the $2500 Dark Upgrade and then get 8 new power tubes and 6 new NOS signal tubes, 3 for each amp. I have $2500 for the upgrade which included new Vishay resistors , Hex Fred diodes new larger capacitors , some wiring and Cardas speaker terminals. With tubes and shipping I’m at $4K for my free amps. It’s always something, and I wish we had a local tech. Yes we suffer reliably issues, tube issues and the jabs from the SS crowd and now the class D crowd. And I’m happy right in the middle of my domain. Stay strong brother , and I’ll meet on the Road To Happy Destiny, or at least Tube Addicts Anonymous. Much Respect , Mike B.
Can using a bad tube hurt an amplifier?
If you're using a tube for a while, and everything's fine, and then voltage changes over time gradually, and then it damages an amplifier? are amps Built with controls to prevent that from happening?
How can you trust using a tube if it potentially could harm an amplifier?
Assuming You're using the correct tube in the slot provided.
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but those other amps are not bulletproof, I might argue they are no more reliable than tube amps. I wouldn't say I was an early adopter for class D amps, but both the Nord's I bought about ten years ago with the Hypex smps1200a400 power supplies lasted exactly 4 years before they expired. They have since revised them, with elimination of one prone to fail capacitor- not sure if they last longer now. I have also had issues with Mcintosh amps. Nothing lasts forever. |
When you have red plating with tube amps until one measures plate voltages you won't know for sure if its tube failure or amp issue, you may be damaging more tubes if amp is the issue. Tubes going bad without red plating likely lost vacuum, sometimes this seen as interior of tube enveloped in blue haze, other times not, another sign is white getter. |
Just had Fedex drop off the replacement Gold Lion 300b, inserted it in the amp, and voila, music is playing again. Just one $5 220uf Rubycon capacitor was all that needed replacing. Lucky the cap went first, and not after various other parts as in this component: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaEiO_9qMwY
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