JJ preamp tubes - repeated problems

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?

@audio_is_subjective I used that phrase because there are class D amps out there that rival tubes in every way except grace at clipping. The guitar market is the primary market of tube producers; high end audio is a tiny portion of their market. These days many guitar players rely on their effects pedals to get their ’sound’ so the amp only has to be smooth enough (not grating) and otherwise similar limited bandwidth of conventional guitar amps (unless one is talking about a Marshall Major or Ampeg V4, which are built on hifi standards).

Tube guitar amps weigh a lot! At 3:AM in the morning after playing a gig, it makes a difference if the amp weighs 85 pounds or only 15. Now that there are musical class D guitar amps out there its simply a matter of time that they will invade the market more and more since they are more reliable with no change to the ’sound’ that players are looking for. So in ten years the guitar market will look quite different. That means that the major market of tube producers is shrinking and nothing to do with the war in Ukraine or what high end audio is up to.

@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..... 

@glennewdick , perfect description of JJs. I’m absolutely with you, they sound pretty bad.

I had a preamp JJ 6922 go bad at about 100 hours.  Heard a crackling and then the left channel went silent. Popped the top on the preamp and the top of the tube was completely burned out.  When I went to pull the tube the glass completely disintegrated. 

@samzx12  , that is interesting.  I've had power tubes actually short out before and all that ever happened was that a fuse in the amp blew . . . you are saying that a fuse in your preamp practically caught fire (almost) and no circuit protection device tripped? 

@immatthewj no I didn’t say it practically caught fire. The tube went bad and the top of the tube was very discolored and when i went to pull it out the glass crumbled. I sent you a PM.

I replaced both tubes left and right channels and preamp plays just fine.