Bought a valve tester

I've had the original since it came out. Very useful tool IMO. I have a bin full of tubes that I've measured and labeled over the years. I want the new one, but it's pretty pricey. Worth it if you have a lot of amps however.

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If these things were $400 I’d buy one today. But at $900-$1000 that’s equivalent to a whole boatload of new tubes or a nice, small, used tube amp. I want one, especially because I have a bunch of tubes and tube amps and would love to test them all, but I struggle to see the cost/benefit of one of these at the current price point.
 
desertdweller said:
If these things were $400 I’d buy one today. But at $900-$1000 that’s equivalent to a whole boatload of new tubes or a nice, small, used tube amp. I want one, especially because I have a bunch of tubes and tube amps and would love to test them all, but I struggle to see the cost/benefit of one of these at the current price point.
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Yes, a boatload of new tubes that you have no way of knowing if they’re actually good or not
 
peterc52 said:
So sick and tired of never knowing which of my tubes works

Ordered an Orange Valve Tester MK II this morning.

Looks good enough for me for my needs.

Could really find any other to buy.

Any experience with it?
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I have the first generation VT1000 and it works well. I also have a maxi-matcher to check it with and they agree with each other (results wise). Of course the Orange doesn't give u numbers but if u just want to check your own tubes (and not re-sell) it does that job and can be trusted.
 
I've got one and have posted a bunch of results on a thread around here somewhere.

I find it most useful for preamp tubes, the power tube matching technically works back lacks a bit of instruction from Orange which is annoying (eg. if tubes are 1 digit off on their rating what does that mean? I think it means they're ~5mA apart, but not sure).
 
I've had one of the newer Orange units since it was released as I do get the odd amp to cross my bench and now have a tube preamp.
It has worked great and has diagnosed a large number of bad tubes thus far for customers. I had the original unit for years but sold it with some other gear in the past.
 
Someone should offer a tube testing service for those of us that have acquired a small box of tubes over the years but not enough to justify buying a tester. Charge a small fee and you should be able to recoup some of the cost.
 
desertdweller said:
If these things were $400 I’d buy one today. But at $900-$1000 that’s equivalent to a whole boatload of new tubes or a nice, small, used tube amp. I want one, especially because I have a bunch of tubes and tube amps and would love to test them all, but I struggle to see the cost/benefit of one of these at the current price point.
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My feelings exactly. Would love to have one, but at the price it costs, I'd rather just buy a ton of tubes.
 
If the guy at Maximatcher would built a model that tests both two power tubes and two 12ax7 triodes he would have a runaway best seller, hell even if he scaled it down to one power tube and one preamp tube I think people could justify a grand for a unit that tests both tube types. I guess he has enough sales as it is for his two stand alone units.......:dunno:

I recently picked up a calibrated Hickok 6000A in really good shape to replaced my od Heathkit TC-2 that wasn't as accurate but it would tell you if the tube was bad or not..... worth every penny IMHO.
 
harddriver said:
If the guy at Maximatcher would built a model that tests both two power tubes and two 12ax7 triodes he would have a runaway best seller, hell even if he scaled it down to one power tube and one preamp tube I think people could justify a grand for a unit that tests both tube types. I guess he has enough sales as it is for his two stand alone units.......:dunno:

I recently picked up a calibrated Hickok 6000A in really good shape to replaced my od Heathkit TC-2 that wasn't as accurate but it would tell you if the tube was bad or not..... worth every penny IMHO.
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I have a 600A a 6000A. Great units
 
How do you guys like the microphony test on the Orange tester? Do you think it's accurate and useful?
 
LP Freak said:
I have a 600A a 6000A. Great units
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Nice!

I've been wanting a Hickok for a while and this one popped up near me so I snagged it. :2thumbsup: I still think if the builder of the Maximatcher had one unit that tested one or two power tubes and was also able to test one or two 12ax7's for the price of just one of his big units $900 or so he probably would sell alot of them.
 
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CDawg said:
How do you guys like the microphony test on the Orange tester? Do you think it's accurate and useful?
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It's useful enough, I find basically anything over a 1 to be too much for V1.

Most of my "bad" ones are around a 6 and probably still suitable for further down, but haven't needed to dip into any of those yet.
 
ners said:
It's useful enough, I find basically anything over a 1 to be too much for V1.

Most of my "bad" ones are around a 6 and probably still suitable for further down, but haven't needed to dip into any of those yet.
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That sounds pretty good to me. I wish Orange gave a bit more information about that test but I'll definitely have to check one of these out because I'd probably enjoy that part.
 
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