fusedbrain
Well-known member
First off, I'm not blaming any of the following on Diezel, or the 2 distributors that handled my amp before it got to me, as I've come to expect this whenever I take delivery of an amp from a courier, but it's getting to be a damn pain in the ass....Not the first time this has happened.
So I took delivery today of a brand new, still sealed in the factory box Diezel VH4. The amp had to go from Germany to B.A.D in California, to Diffussion Audio in Montreal, and then to me in Toronto, so it's logged some serious time in the back of a truck.
When I first fired it up, it sounded OK - kinda, but not quite"right". Definately not "brand new, legendary VH4 kinda "right", if ya know what I mean.... A little disappointing actually!
Given all the miles on the thing, I figured I should probably check the power tubes before I get down to some serious tone tweaking and trying to dial the amp in. Sure enough, the power tube situation was a mess.
The 4 - KT77's in the amp look like a matched quad of JJ's, all labeled as "69ma" ( which probably doesn't mean much in absolute terms, but would indicate they were a matched set at the factory ) and I'm sure everything was fine with them when the Diezel guys boxed the amp up and sent it to Cali.
But now at my place, after traveling half way around the world, the tubes are drawing, in order - 33, 26, 42, & 39 ma @ 470v on the plates according to my meter. That basically renders that quad of JJ's useless, and the 39 & 42 ma tubes probably wouldn't have lasted very long either if I hadn't checked. That's 80% dissipation Kinda helps explain the lackluster tone too.
Anyway, I had a matched quad of KT77's in the tube stash, so I'm up and running with all 4 tubes biased @ 34ma-35ma, but this is not the first time this has happened. Probably more a reflection of the state of modern tube production than anything else, but it's still annoying as hell I'm starting to wonder if it would be better for manufacturers to wrap the 4 power tubes together in a giant wad of bubble wrap, and pack them like that, rather than ship the amp with the tubes in the sockets? I know that opens up a whole other can of worms with the end users having to install power tubes in the sockets when they get the amp, but the current method is less than ideal.
OK, rant over. Just wanted to vent a bit
Oh ..... and by the way....the amp is kicking some major ass now
Everything people say about these amps is true
Pretty happy with the purchase to say the least!
So I took delivery today of a brand new, still sealed in the factory box Diezel VH4. The amp had to go from Germany to B.A.D in California, to Diffussion Audio in Montreal, and then to me in Toronto, so it's logged some serious time in the back of a truck.
When I first fired it up, it sounded OK - kinda, but not quite"right". Definately not "brand new, legendary VH4 kinda "right", if ya know what I mean.... A little disappointing actually!
Given all the miles on the thing, I figured I should probably check the power tubes before I get down to some serious tone tweaking and trying to dial the amp in. Sure enough, the power tube situation was a mess.
The 4 - KT77's in the amp look like a matched quad of JJ's, all labeled as "69ma" ( which probably doesn't mean much in absolute terms, but would indicate they were a matched set at the factory ) and I'm sure everything was fine with them when the Diezel guys boxed the amp up and sent it to Cali.
But now at my place, after traveling half way around the world, the tubes are drawing, in order - 33, 26, 42, & 39 ma @ 470v on the plates according to my meter. That basically renders that quad of JJ's useless, and the 39 & 42 ma tubes probably wouldn't have lasted very long either if I hadn't checked. That's 80% dissipation Kinda helps explain the lackluster tone too.
Anyway, I had a matched quad of KT77's in the tube stash, so I'm up and running with all 4 tubes biased @ 34ma-35ma, but this is not the first time this has happened. Probably more a reflection of the state of modern tube production than anything else, but it's still annoying as hell I'm starting to wonder if it would be better for manufacturers to wrap the 4 power tubes together in a giant wad of bubble wrap, and pack them like that, rather than ship the amp with the tubes in the sockets? I know that opens up a whole other can of worms with the end users having to install power tubes in the sockets when they get the amp, but the current method is less than ideal.
OK, rant over. Just wanted to vent a bit
Oh ..... and by the way....the amp is kicking some major ass now
Everything people say about these amps is true
Pretty happy with the purchase to say the least!