Tube Amp question:TUBE replacements: explain MATCHED?

@moose89 

just my two cents, but I’d work on getting the EL84s & the 12AX7s real good first (before or even IF you decide to try to find a way to go hog wild on the outputs).

Sounds like you have everything you need to check & adjust your bias, so good for you on that. The only thing that I would have done differently on that is to have bought a versatile multi-meter versus that fancy meter that Cary sells. But you can keep that in mind for next time in case the one from Cary ever breaks.

@rodman99999 

I was thinking that if Moose didn't have a multi-meter he could have killed two birds with one stone (always good to have a multi-meter handy) and if he did have a MM, he could have saved the $ on that one and just bought the leads.

But that's okay.  And if you've seen the pictures of the CAD 1205 MKII, that has bias meters built into the front face plate so one can be monitoring the bias all the time, and I can see where that would be nice.  I guess one could do the same thing with that fancy Cary meter?

You had a couple of SLM 100s?  How did you like them?  I once tried out a Mesa Barron and that got me wanting mono blocks and seriously considering the 100s.  I remember talking to Kirk Owens about them, & he sounded unusually (for him) animated.  I wound up buying a couple of secondhand ARC VTM 120s from a guy who was selling them via a listing in the back of Stereophile; those amps sure sounded good, but I used to cross my fingers & grit my teeth whenever I turned them on, so for the sake of reliability I bought my V12 in '01.

Oh well, ramble on. . . .

however I need the plug-in to check the Bias, and I guess a meter?

I just looked at the bias instructions for the 808 and the bias is adjusted by the same procedure as the two Cary amps that I own. A plug (with a + lead and a - lead) insert into a receptacle in the back of the amp; you will need a multimeter that will read DC milliamps. Connect the leads from the bias plug to the leads on the multimeter (the Cary bias plug leads have alligator clips on them) and after the amp is warmed up, you can adjust the bias pot. I always back my bias pot all the way down and start from scratch when installing new output tubes or plugging the amp in at an unfamiliar environment.

@wspohn 

I remember an email exchange with someone on another audio forum who was helping me troubleshoot one of my amps.  Biasing was part of the subject matter, and I remember him telling me about the ARC that he had (I cannot remember which one) that he had to bias each tube individually, including the input tubes.  He said that it was a time consuming endeavor.  On my Cary V12, I have a bias pot for the 6 output tubes on one side and a bias pot for the 6 on the other side.  My Cary SLA70 just biases all 4 outputs together. 

@wspohn

That’s what I told the individual who was helping me troubleshoot my Cary when he told me about how he had to bias his ARC. I said, "That’s interesting." But, I also said that I thought that it must make for a better tuned amp. I once had a pair of ARC VTM120s, & I vaguely remember hooking up leads for the multimeter to legs of resistors on the circuit board, and then adjusting the bias pot (on the board) with one of those plastic screw drivers you referred to. That typed,  on those ARCs that I owned each bank of four 6550s were adjusted together.

As far as checking bias, I bought a dozen new reissued Tungsols going on a year or so ago, and I have actually been checking mine after every several hours of play time. Mainly what I am watching for is to see that the small changes in bias that occur are happening on both sides simultaneously (which for now, they are).