Given that most folks approach this forum searching for answers to questions that, by and large, arise out of some difficulty they're having, be warned,
'tis not always the case.
A few months back I installed a quad of very long-in-the-tooth Mullard El-34/6CA7 outputs in my spankin' new ST-70. I do love the old Blackburn sound; reminds one a lot of RCA's famous "house sound."
I was listening away this morning (both channels) to the -70 at the lower end of medium SPLs when I looked over at the amp to discover one of the front two El-34s was not glowing; in fact, it was cold to the touch. I shot off the power and waited for all four outputs to chill out, and took a closer look. The errant tube had absolutely no top-getter flashing at all! Upon further inspection of the remaining outputs, all looked at death's door. So into the junk drawer they went and out came a brand-new quad of NOS Siemens, which after warming up biased right up at .040 and looked, after an hour or two's run, to be staying there.
Nothing happened when this tube blew. I still had sound on that channel, no 10-ohm resistor blew, nothing got unusual, no magic smoke emerged, nada.
I just want to log this for posterity's sake. That you can blow a tube without blowing everything else around it to smithereens only happens in fairy tales, but it can, if you live long enough, happen to you.
'tis not always the case.
A few months back I installed a quad of very long-in-the-tooth Mullard El-34/6CA7 outputs in my spankin' new ST-70. I do love the old Blackburn sound; reminds one a lot of RCA's famous "house sound."
I was listening away this morning (both channels) to the -70 at the lower end of medium SPLs when I looked over at the amp to discover one of the front two El-34s was not glowing; in fact, it was cold to the touch. I shot off the power and waited for all four outputs to chill out, and took a closer look. The errant tube had absolutely no top-getter flashing at all! Upon further inspection of the remaining outputs, all looked at death's door. So into the junk drawer they went and out came a brand-new quad of NOS Siemens, which after warming up biased right up at .040 and looked, after an hour or two's run, to be staying there.
Nothing happened when this tube blew. I still had sound on that channel, no 10-ohm resistor blew, nothing got unusual, no magic smoke emerged, nada.
I just want to log this for posterity's sake. That you can blow a tube without blowing everything else around it to smithereens only happens in fairy tales, but it can, if you live long enough, happen to you.
