AUDIO RESEARCH D-76A


I am new to this trade so bare with me if I ask dum questions.
I have a AUDIO RESEARCH D-76A power amp that I been using for few months now. as you probably know this amp has the most tubes than any other tube amp that I can remember. the middle of the amp are four 12AX7. I notice that one of the 12AX7 [middle top] are not lighting up nor hot. so I had all the sockets replace but still no light nor hot. I was told that its normal. how could it be? will this de-grade my sound? please enlighten me. I will appreciate any advice. thanks
torogi
This is a job foooooor -- Hifigeek!! Or, you can call ARC and ask for Calvin. He's a great guy and I always found him extremely helpful.

Good luck.
I believe this are the original RCA tubes unfortunately most of the white numbers or letters are erased. all I can find are the red letters/numbers that says RCA afc 12ax7/ecc83. how ever I tried other four tungsol 12ax7 with no improvement. I just fund other symtom. Iv'd been running the amp for at least
3 hours when all of a sudden the right channel made a crackling sound. sense
that the right channel volume went down. until now I'm trying to figure it out. the left channel is 80% louder than the right channel. I will appreciate any advice I can get. thank you very much.
Art