Rusty Messages: 1186 Registered: May 2018 Location: Kansas City Missouri
Illuminati (3rd Degree)
Depends on the tubes and how many. If you have an amp with 300b tubes, it will cost hundreds of dollars to replace. Thousands even if you were nuts enough to want vintage NOS Western Electric tubes. I have two mono OTL amps with 16 output tubes for each amp. If I were to had used domestic suppliers for the Russian triodes to replace. It would have cost hundreds of dollars to replace. But a mother Russia source allowed me to get tubes to replace all twice over with spares for a little over a hundred bucks. Just look at some of the tube suppliers around the net to get a handle on cost for what ever amp you'd have interest in.
gofar99 Messages: 1947 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Hi, As a tube gear designer and lover I want to add a thought to your question. I find that with well designed gear there is no need to frequently replace the tubes. It seems that this is the product of pro audio (guitar etc) applications. Tubes in such gear are often run at or even above ratings. This does indeed shorten tube life. It is impossible to generalize all non-pro gear, but most I have encountered in the past 50+ years have rather a long life for their tubes. As an exception for consumer gear I would include older televisions as devices that run tubes hard. I get asked about this in regard to my designs all the time. I base the designs on a lifespan of 10 years for power tubes and essentially forever on drivers and preamps. I feel it is an essential feature that is of great benefit to users. So unless you are experiencing problems I would not replace any tubes.
Rusty Messages: 1186 Registered: May 2018 Location: Kansas City Missouri
Illuminati (3rd Degree)
As an example of that. I've never had to replaced my 16 output tubes, 6c19pi, except one that was bad in my monoblocks. I wanted more than enough to last for as long as I was around. Didn't know if their availability longevity would be steady.
gofar99 Messages: 1947 Registered: May 2010 Location: Southern Arizona
Illuminati (5th Degree)
Yes indeed, I figure the KT88s I used in my first large amp will outlast me as well. They are going on 12 years now and 1000's of hours and still just fine.
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