Funny with the amount of tube amplifiers I see at shows I hardly see this as the product being in it's twilight. JJ tubes maybe of questionable quality, or filaments maybe getting damaged in shipping?
JJ preamp tubes - repeated problems
I purchased an amplifier that came with stock tubes made by JJ. There were problems with the amplifier so I replaced some tubes and then figured out it was the pre-amplifier tubes and small tubes. The manufacturer in this case who is McIntosh did send me replacement tubes and they worked for a month or so and then began to crackle. Now I have to figure out which of the six small tubes is creating a problem.
I'm curious to know if manufacturers test the tubes that they use in the amplifiers before they ship them out? Maybe they test fine and then go bad within a month. I'm very suspicious they don't bother testing their tubes.
Judging by the process to test individual tubes and when you have 24 tubes on an amplifier I can understand them not giving them much attention during the manufacturing process. Maybe they expect people to replace all the tubes just like the power cords they send out.
.Many replace the stock tubes immediately with gold lions which seems like an easy choice. Maybe manufactures do test their tubes and they're just using a poor manufacturer.
Do others have tube problems with McIntosh amplifiers?
Showing 3 responses by audio_is_subjective
@atmasphere I understand your position and I am not a GaN naysayer. I also do not see the death of tube amplification coming nearly as fast as you do. When I was in grade 6 I had a science teacher teaching the Evolution Module state that at some point humans would only have 4 toes, as our little toe will simply devolve from our anatomy as humans will walk less in the future and stand less with automation. I agree she was a bit daft. Though I am still waiting for that hover board and flying car she said we would have by Y2K..... |