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

Hi Bob,
I just happen to come across this thread while browsing today. Bob I thought my Frankenstein MKII driving your speakers was quite exceptional sound in your large room. The combo filled the space and was very dynanmic,transparent with liquidity and just plain good musical pace and flow, nice match!

Bob I think you should purchase the 'lusted after' DeHavilland 845 amps,I`m certain they`d also make a superb match with your speakers.Before Arthur Salvatore got his Frankenstein amps he had stated much high regard for the Dehavilland SET amps.

It would be a lot of fun to compare(friendly of course) these two fine SET amps and note how they differ based on output tube and circuit.
Best Regards,

Joe, what you say about varying ZETA is certainly true; Joel's been saying the same thing for a long time. That said, there's no substitute for good amplification, especially with speakers as revealing as the C's.

In my mind, 1st order series is THE way to go. Very few parts in the signal path and no big surprise, when we eliminated the resistor on the tweeter, dynamics and clarity improved tremendously.

Charles, yes, your Franks sounded wonderful and as mentioned previously, mated beautifully with my speakers. Big, open, spacious, organic and just plain easy on the ears. Your Franks are the reason I was considering the 300B in the first place but in the end, I'd still prefer a few more watts; call it extra headroom for those musical peaks.

Both of you, I wouldn't say I've been "lusting" after the deHavilland's but yes, I have been thinking about them for a long time. Problem is, I'm "married with children" and don't want to part with my Atma-Sphere MA-1's; or anything else for that matter.

Finally Charles, it would be fun doing a "friendly" comparison between the Franks and the deHavillands. My guess, they'd both win!

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,

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.

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.