2. amps-preamps
  3. 186564-17425

Can a tube short without blowing?

Loud pop, the left channel went silent.  All tubes in the integrated amp remained lit and appeared to be normal.  The left channel tube fuse had blown.  Can a tube short and cause a fuse blow but without causing the tube to fail?  It is probably just a bad fuse but I’ve never had a fuse fail without a cause after initial startup (e.g., first 20 hours).   There are 125 hours on the Cary SLI-80HS integrated amp now.

‘Also, can a preamp section tube at EOL cause something like this? After the first 100 hours of run-in I replaced the 6922 tubes with a pair of beloved NOS tubes with many hours on them. They also remained lit throughout the event.

txp1

Showing 2 responses by txp1

txp1 OP
145 posts
 

@oddiofyl @tomcy6  Thank you!  Although I’ve used tube equipment for many years I did not know either of these facts about tubes.

 I was lucky— it was just a prematurely bad fuse.  I’ll keep my eye on the 6922s.  I wish I could find another pair (NOS Ediswan 6922).  So far, no luck.

txp1 OP
145 posts
 

@atmasphere @paulcreed  Fuse weirdness in play!  I replaced the tube fuse and all was well for one day then the AC fuse blew. So I put the stock front-end (preamp) tubes back in and replaced the AC fuse.  All good now for a couple days. I need to put the tubes back in that started it all to see if I’m in a similar situation as you were. 

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