Ham Sandwich
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- May 22, 2006
- Posts
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- 640
Yea I had an email sent to monoprice within 30 minutes of operation failure. I do in fact have a tube shop about an hour away from me I was intending to go to soon. If the tubes fail would they still run? If so I don't think it was tubes. Once I had let it sit for a while longer I tried the amp one more time, and by that point it would turn on and the tubes would warm up, but no sound would come through the amp any longer. I was unaware the tubes in the box were not at least factory tested prior to being placed in the box. I will definitely grab some different tubes the next go around. I already ordered another off amazon to get me by while working things out with monoprice on the first one, so I'll grab some tubes too. I'm just guessing it was some kind of short by the rca inputs based on what's still working and what isn't. Great sounding little amp otherwise. Kinda hoping I end up with 2 now and can use one for the experimental tube rolling I've seen others here do.
Just because a tube glows doesn't mean it is good or hasn't failed so bad it would kill the amp. The only way to know if the tubes are still good would be to test them in a tube tester.
Hopefully you can get a replacement for an acceptable price. The current third-party price on Amazon isn't great ($689), but better than not having the amp at all. Just a couple weeks ago the third party price on Amazon was $446. (camelcamelcamel historical Amazon pricing). Buying through Amazon third party means you probably won't get the Monoprice warranty, but will get a 30 day return by Amazon if it fails in the first 30 days.
It is a very nice amp. I like it a lot. Like it enough that I have a spare just in case the first one dies. I want to be listening to this amp when I'm old.
The risk I kinda worry about with the amp is tubes failing in a way that kills the amp (always a risk with hybrid amps), or a power brownout or power outage that happens while the amp is on and interrupts the power on cycle it does when you first turn it on. Either of those things could potentially kill the amp. If you live in an area with poor power then getting a pure sine wave UPS (like a CyberPower PFC Sinewave) would be a good idea.