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ahhh emergency, quick response please - broke a tube, can i pull it and still be safe


Casey

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Amp is 100watt (60 watt option on a switch). runs on 4 6l6s. broke one of the inner 2 tubes. Can i pull it and another one and still be safe? Amp is an Acoustic Sound Corp Model 165 if that helps.

 

here's a schematic. Halp! Trying to get to the place on time as it is rented and no interbutts on my phone.

http://www.schematics-free.com/modules/PDdownloads/display_download.php?img=http://www.schematics-free.com/uploads/PDdownloads/acoustic_165.pdf&title=Acoustic%20model%20165%20Schematic%20Diagram

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It seemed to be fine tonight. the amp only has 8 and 4 ohm settings. It was on 4 ohms plugged into the single speaker in the first place therefore I couldn't go lower. Was that perhaps not right in the first place? It lasted for a 2.5 hour practice with no apparent problem... Someone get back to me on this, it's going to be a couple weeks before i can afford a new set of tubes and a trip to the amp tech to bias it. What can I get away with here?

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Read here under impedance:

http://www.drifteramps.com/safety.html

 

Or here:

http://www.londonpower.com/pwr-faq.htm

 

The guys at London Power seem to be against the current way of thinking though:

 

 

Q: In a magazine Q-A, a player wanted to pull tubes to reduce power, but the "expert" said this would cause a meltdown of the remaining tubes. Of course, it was suggested that the expert's attenuator product was the preferred way to go. Is any of this true?


A: This is a person who should know better!


Removing tubes from a multi-tube fixed-bias output stage is never a problem. You can remove any number of tubes, and yes, that means you can take one tube out of a two-tube amp; one, two, or three out of a four tube stage, et cetera. This sounds heretical to techs stuck in the mire of convention, but it is something that has been known since tubes were invented.


The even-number tube extractions reduce power symmetrically. Neither the tubes nor the transformer will be damaged. Power will be reduced and so will frequency bandwidth - you will lose some bass and some treble. This is the point that switching the impedance selector to a less-than-load setting is supposed to correct, but it is completely subjective whether you should. The only 'should' of the matter, is do I like it this way, or do I like it that way?


In the uneven tube extractions, asymmetric power reduction occurs. Conventional thought says "the one tube on one side of the circuit will be trying to match the output of the two tubes on the other circuit half". This is wrong. The single tube can only produce so much power, and that's all it does. It doesn't melt down. The transformer does not blow up.


So, what's missing from conventional thought? The realization that tubes are "self-limiting power governors", which was stated in The Ultimate Tone (TUT), and explored in more detail in TUT2 and TUT3. TUT4 explores all of this in great detail. Our "expert" should get a copy.


In the end, you can pull tubes to reduce power, unless the amp is cathode biased - then you have to split the bias resistor. In any case, you do not have to worry about the impedance selector either.

 

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