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Post by DonaldDemon on Jul 14, 2010 8:19:28 GMT -5
I’ve been playing tubes amps for almost 15 years and I blew my first fuse/tube last night! I was at band practice and when I flipped the bypass switch on I heard a pop and the amp shut off. It blew the main fuse so I changed it and thought it was dodgy power in the studio. Turned the amp on and then watched the middle tube arc blue light and then blew the slow blow fuse! Luckily I had spares on me. What sucks is I JUST changed tubes a few months ago and now I have to buy two new ones and soon because I have a show Saturday.  For last night I pulled the two inner tubes and replaced with the outer tubes to run at half power. Was this what most do to get around it? I did notice a small blue light in the tube where the last one blew, hopefully that’s not a problem. |
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Post by sasquatch on Jul 14, 2010 9:22:52 GMT -5
Hopefully it's not the tube socket, but yes... that's the best/most common way to get around a blown tube on a temporary basis. Tubes are a funny thing. The oldest technology of any of the amps components except for maybe the transformers. I usually get a year to year and a half out of a quad of PT's, but did have a two month old Mesa Boogie tube go out on me in my first Rectifier head. It took out another component (I think it was a capacitor) when it fried and I had to take the amp in for repair. Fortunately, the tube was under warranty so all I had to pay for was the capacitor, which was cheap. But it does happen.
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Post by DonaldDemon on Jul 14, 2010 10:08:51 GMT -5
Hopefully it's not the tube socket, but yes... that's the best/most common way to get around a blown tube on a temporary basis. Tubes are a funny thing. The oldest technology of any of the amps components except for maybe the transformers. I usually get a year to year and a half out of a quad of PT's, but did have a two month old Mesa Boogie tube go out on me in my first Rectifier head. It took out another component (I think it was a capacitor) when it fried and I had to take the amp in for repair. Fortunately, the tube was under warranty so all I had to pay for was the capacitor, which was cheap. But it does happen. Damn, that’s what I’m afraid of. It’s bad to blow the main fuse right? Well the amp worked on half power with no problems so I am assuming it’s ok. I have to admit though, it didn’t sound as good I don’t like playing on half power. |
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Post by DonaldDemon on Jul 16, 2010 8:02:36 GMT -5
Well I talked to Doug at Doug’s Tubes and he said it’s basically not worth only replacing two after 4 months of heavy usage so it looks like I will be buying all new tubes again. Sucks but at least he is hooking me up and giving me a deal on the price. I guess I’ll be doing the bias before the show on Saturday.  |
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