Question:
After finishing worship tonight, I discovered a broken power amp tube. I saw it within 5 minutes after playing through the amp. I really don't think it was caused by physical contact. Can a tube just randomly break? It might be pretty old.
Answer:
Originally Posted by sabertooth181 After finishing worship tonight, I discovered a broken power amp tube. I saw it within 5 minutes after playing through the amp. I really don't think it was caused by physical contact. Can a tube just randomly break? It might be pretty old.
I don't know about breaking, but blowing does happen from normal use. You should retube regularly, now is a good time.
Answer:
I am kind of thinking that it blew out. It was almost out of the socket.
Answer:
The only time I've had a tube break (broken glass) was when my amp was originally shipped to me (by some idiot who didn't remove the tubes). Other than that, it shouldn't happen. Power tubes will "blow," but that's more like a light bulb burning out - it certainly needn't involve broken glass. If the glass is broken, though, the tube will almost instantaneously stop working.
Nate
Answer:
I had one break once. Somebody else moved my amp, and may have set it down hard, but I'm not sure if that is what caused it. I looked inside the amp and one of the power resistors was burned out - don't know if that caused the tube to overheat and break, or of the tube broke and then drew too much current....?
Anyway it would be a good idea to look inside before you power it up with a new tube. If its a 6L6 or EL34 type that has the bakelite base - if its just the base that's broken, and the glass is intact i'd go ahead and use it.
If the glass is broken, I would suspect that it happened after your amp was turned off, 'cause I don't think they will last but a fraction of a second after the glass breaks, i.e. you wouldn't have been able to play thru it like that. It may have broken when it was cooling off.
An advantage of tube amps over SS - in this case, the component that handles the bulk of the current, the power tube, is user replaceable.