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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?

128x128mitch4t

Showing 2 responses by oddiofyl

oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,465 posts
 

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

oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,465 posts
 

When I started playing with 4 pin DHT and rectifiers I bought a Hickok 800.   It looks like it should be in a museum, it's that nice.  It was serviced not too long ago and have saved me from using a bad tubemore that once.  It paid for itself by not allowing tubes to damage my gear.   

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