Reliability of Golden Tube amps....

I bought a SE-40 second hand about 3-4 years ago and have not had any reliability problems with it, but I have heard that some people did have problems with GTA products. For a long time it was difficult to get a schematic for the SE-40, but I've seen schematics being sold on Ebay. The only time I've had a problem with the SE-40 is when I biased it. The first time I tried a blew a tube, but that was my fault not the amps. Biasing these amps can be a little tricky. With all that said, they really are great sounding amps. I was using mine with a passive pre and a pair of Triangle Titus speakers. Within it's limitations it was an excellent sounding, fairly inexpensive system.

Golden Tube is indeed out of business. I owned a couple of their SE-40 amps and never had a single problem. I have heard /read that they did have reliability problems with the earlier runs of these amps as well as the matching preamp. I think they still have a users group forum on yahoo.

I'm not 100% sure but I think they are long out of business. They did have a reputation for poor reliability but they had a lot of happy customers too. I personally purchased a new one and within a week it broke exchanged it for something else.

I recall they had a lovely, somewhat classic tubelike sound. You are rolling the dice though.

Art