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Re: Atma-Centric tube tester (trial baloon)

The primary reason for making a tester that does both the small triodes and the power tubes, is that the owner might *not* have access to a tester for the small tubes.

As far as using the amps themselves as testers, there are two issues:

1) Wear and tear on the sockets in the amps. Wearing them out from tube-testing use is not a nice way to treat the equipment. Replacing 16,28, or 40 bagged-out sockets is not a cheap operation.

2) Using the amp as a tester for small groups of new tubes isn't all that practical.

The idea of using tip-jacks isn't a bad one, in fact, we're doing a custom mod on a pair of M-60's right now, that incorporates installing a tip jack for each power triode section. There is no real safety concern, as the jacks are just a volt or two above chassis potential.

That said, installing jacks on every piece of equipment will result in a price increase; something we try to avoid. Aesthetically, they are not too bad, but there is another issue.

A prospective buyer looks at an amp with 16 or 28 jacks on it, and the logical assumptions are 1) they are there for a reason 2) I will need to stick something into them on a regular basis, maybe just to check bias 3) I will have to understand the how & why of it. These are not good selling points, IMO.

Again, I just brought this up for the sake of groupthink..

Perhaps a 6AS7-only tester, with like 8 sockets in it.. so that whole batches can be quickly compared? Just thinking..

Thank you for your comments,
Bill


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