[sacd lover]

I havent had alot of tube gear, but mine always breaks. What has your experience been? Have you had problems or has your gear been reliable? What I really want to know is what tube gear is reliable? I love tube sound but it gives me nothing but trouble. Especially,what is a reliable tube head amp? WHAT DO YOU SAY TUBE OWNERS?

 

[scottpaul_iu]

I have had a Berning MicroZOTL for about 3 months, and I have had no problems. I have Quicksilver M-80 amps and a CAT SL-1 preamp and have used them daily for over 8 years and have had no problems with them.

I did have a Melos ST-90 amp, and that POS blew up tubes and its cheap ass circuit board too often (getting Melos to service it was a NIGHTMARE), so I sold it and got the above Quicksilver and CAT combo. I also had a Melos preamp something like a MA-110. I had that for about 3 years and had no problems with it, I sold that and got a SHA and had no problems either.

I also have owned a Dyanco ST-70 and had zero problems with it. Just that @#$@#$@#$ Melos Amp was my only tube problem.

 

[darkclouds]

I have had a few pieces of tube gear and fortunately, nothing really has gone wrong.

The most frequent problems are usually some sort of noise/hum interference.

My first piece was the MG Head DT and that had a bit of noise from the left channel which was eliminated by a simple mod.

The Zotl had absolutely no problem as did the Melos Sha-1.

My current setup is the ASL 1005DTI with AES AE-3 pre. 1005DTI runs perfectly, but the recent addition of the AE-3 has brought out a steady hum on both channels. Don't know what the problem is.

That's about it. Actually, I had a Citation 2 once that I dumped (didn't know it's value then) cause it was too heavy to move and I had no idea how to service it. Picked it up for 5 bucks at the goodwill.

My buddy just picked up for me a heathkit model aa32 for a couple of bucks. Haven't plugged it in yet.

I'll probably pick up more tube gear as my wallet permit.

 

[Orpheus]

For the few days that I had a relatively working MG Head, the center Ei 12Ax7 that came with it was okay. then after about 2 days (1 hour of usage)... the right channel all of a sudden went out. i changed that Ei tube to a Philips 5751 i had lying around, and both channels worked okay again.... heh he, but then that's when i noticed one channel was louder than the other.... and blah blah blah... my endless complaints from then on....

like you, i also swore off tube gear with my mg head experiences... so that's why i bought the Monarchy SM-70..... but man, now that thing has more hum than my original MG Head..... I think i'm cursed.