I went to Wendell's web page to check out his replacement meters, and
found the notice of his death.
For those of you that didn't know Wendell, he was the last remaining
Hickok authorized tube tester repair man. He worked on testers and old
equipment for most of his life and was a wonderful man. He provided
free info, pep talks and general knowledge about radios and tube
testers to anyone who called. Wendell was a nice man and a great tech,
he will be missed.

I'm sure he was a great old guy, no disrespect, but tube testers are
not such a godsend. They tend to be used by people that don't know what
they are doing and promote tube rolling and bad troubleshooting. I
concede they can be a benefit sometimes but overall cause a lot of
trouble.

wrote:
but tube testers are
not such a godsend. They tend to be used by people that don't know what
they are doing

ummmm, no

sure, some newbies rely too much on tube testers, especially by trying to
use a tester to evalute sound quality, which it can't do, but I sure
wouldn't care to manually test the 100's of thousands of tubes in my
warehouse for shorted elements with a multimeter!

and you really can't lump all testers together, while most were scarcely
more than a way for an old TV man to make a sale in the customers home and
quickly show the customer that they truly have a bad tube in their
television or radio, there were a number of lab grade testers made in the
50's and 60's that would cost a what a decent car would cost in today
dollars. This high-end type of tester, when properly calibrated, can
provide meaningful information, especially in the realm of whether you the
vintage tube you just bought on ebay for big bucks is worn out or NOS

and promote tube rolling

and what is wrong with tube rolling? how else are you going to discover a
great sounding alternative tube number to let your vintage or new amp have a
richer tone?

and bad troubleshooting.

finding a short before it costs you a valuable power tranny or rectifier is
GOOD troubleshooting!


cheers!

cowboy

"richer tone"=distortion

"Richer tone" is the purview of FX, eq, compressior and sound
modification equipment. It has no place in the hi-fi amplifier, but you
can modify your signal at line level at low expense if you prefer. Just
do not insult the pursuit of high fidelity with such ideas.

As for finding shorts and indeed sorting through tubes in general, yes
dedicated equipment is needed, but new build is usually more cost
effective for serious use. Yuppie virtual big penis artists have driven
the price of many tube tester types to ridiculous heights and in most
cases they will never use 90% of what these testers offer.

cowboy wrote:

I sure
wouldn't care to manually test the 100's of thousands of tubes in my
warehouse

Basch, you are so full of **** my screen turns brown every time I open one of
your posts.

You've never even been in the same *city* as a warehouse
with 100,000+ tubes in it. Back in your hole, you lying ****.

Lord Valve
Expert