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…
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?