Life of KT 150 Tubes


Auris audio Mono Block -Forte 150 uses Two KT150 for power output for each monos, Very strangely a both amps popped the KT 150 same time. I can vouch it had less than 1000 hours in 2 years as I have NAIM NAC 252/NAP 300 in the same room. I tested the tubes and one is 100% dead and the rest have very marginal life. With great difficulty I have ordered four new tubes. Would any of you know why this would have happened, in the sense bath amps not working at the same time? I am trying to get hold of Auris in Serbia. Even a good Valve tech will not open the unit without schematics and Auris wouldn’t provide one. I am in Canada. There are 2 authorized service center in the US. When crated both amp weighs 94 Kgs.Not easy to ship. I tried with a borrowed set of TUBES , there is no Biasing at all,mA reads 0, but there is signal coming in and VU display lights up. 

Lesson learnt well not to buy equipment that is hard to service. I bought this even before there was a dealer in canada. I tried contacting the distributor Motet in Toronto. They are telling me to contact Dealer in Edmonton 300Km away. He never sold me the unit, why would he have any interest if he didn’t make any money on this unit? The unit cost $16,800 USD. Any advise what I should do?

vishu

Showing 1 response by gs5556

If this is the first and only set of tubes you had, my first instinct would be a faulty production batch from the factory. I wouldn't suspect the amplifiers unless the problem happened with one amp. Moreover, a bias current of 55 to 60mA means the amp is running in Class AB with a B+ voltage around 550V for a 100 watt rated output. At this condition the KT150's are dissipating only 50% of their rated power. This should make the tube last way longer than the 1,000 hour life quoted by Tung Sol.

That said, there are a couple of things a competent tech can do without opening the hood. Power up the amps without the tubes and measure the voltage on pin 5 on each KT150 socket to check the grid voltage. All four grids should have the same voltage within a few hundred millivolts. The pcb pictures of this amp show a time delay to turn on the B+, it is critical -- critical -- that the bias voltage appears on the grid before the B+ turns on and the B+ voltage drops faster than the bias voltage when powered off. Having a substantial voltage on the plate without a bias voltage drives the tube into high current and shortens the tube life considerably.

My suggestion would be to buy a set of tubes from Upscale Audio where they claim to weed out weak factory batches and run the tubes hard prior to sale.