Herbert probs, Peter your advice needed

Hey Peter

I know your busy but could you advise me on this. Tonight at a gig i turned my herbie on and it was ok on standby, but when i fired it up 2 of the valves, 2 + 5 were glowing bright blue and buzzing. i swapped them over with my spares and they were fine, but just wondered if you know the fault. i have just replaced them with new Rubys a few months ago. could it be the preamp valves as i aint replaced them and to be honest the herbie even with the new power tubes doesnt sound that great anymore!! could the problem be from moving the amp before its cooled down after its used for gigs?
Also anyone know about 5150's, i turned mine on a few days ago and the volume is reduced and hardly any gain from it even on high gain.

Tubes stay 2 seconds or 20 years.
Have You biased the new ones ?

:|::QBB:

Peter Diezel":ea90e said:

Tubes stay 2 seconds or 20 years.
Have You biased the new ones ?

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yeah i biased the new ones to 65ma each pair. To be honest i had trouble getting the ruby EL34STR's here in the UK, I purchased them from GAK and they kept sending the wrong ones and when i did get the ruby STR's they looked real old stock as the boxes looked 10 years old!! and bashed a bit. Is there anywhere you know of in the UK or Europe i can order Rubys or would you recommend any other type of EL34 or 6L6??
I need to revalve the preamp ones as well as they are about 2 years old now and not sounding great

www.tubeampdoctor.com

Or www.watfordvalves.com. They just moved actually and reopened again yesterday. All the tested tubes I've bought from there have lasted very well and NEVER had any problems with them. Derek who runs it seems like a good bloke too. Even in my Herbie that had a problem it was always the Ruby EL34s that went, not the Watford Valves tested ones. Either the Herbie was faulty, or Ruby tubes are junk imo. After 5 months of trouble Peter replaced the Herbie and biased it with some Watford valves own brand EL34s I sent him, and a pair of Ruby 6L6's and it hasn't blown yet! Hurrah! (Thanks Peter! ) It was gonna have all Watford tested tubes but Svetlana Winged-C 6550Cs draw too much current so it got the pair of Ruby 6L6s...

So I don't know for sure if it was the Herbie (cuz Peter couldn't seem to find anything wrong with it), or if I was hugely unlucky with Rubys, but I'm staying away from Rubys. I had more tubes blow in that amp in 5 months than in at least 5 years in my marshall. Watford tests all their valves very well so I just figure it's worth knowing they're as reliable as possible. I might try some of their "cryo" tubes next time too, but hopefully it'll be a good year or so since I have to retube my Herbie so I'll happily wait!

might try them! I ordered TAD preamp tubes that am going to use, i have a new set of Ruby EL34's that i was going to stick in but was looking at Watfords website and thought of maybe ordering TAD power amp valves.
I will call the guy Derek for advice

Cheers