Orange Valve Tester Mark II - My experience (so far) on how it fares against other matchers/testers?

War_in_D

War_in_D

Well-known member
I'm going to first start by saying that I've only had it for a couple of days, so I'll be the first to admit that my experience with it is still pretty new. That being said, I think it's doing a pretty darn good job so far with only a couple of "anomalies". Here is what I've run through it so far:
  • Pretty much my entire stash of vintage/NOS preamp tubes. All have tested good, and discovered that I've got quite a few with "balanced" triodes. The only caveat I have here is the A/B designation that Orange gives the triodes vs. just calling them triode 1 and triode 2 like my old Hickok did. I'm assuming that "A" is triode one, etc.. but it's not specifically stated in the owners manual.
  • The microphony feature is interesting, albeit I'm not sure how valuable that information is at this point. I haven't tested any new production preamp tubes yet, or anything that I currently have in an amp that I know isn't squealing like a pig but the vintage/NOS stuff went from dead quiet (no LED's) to some ranging in the 4-5 range on a scale of 1-15 and a few that were downright "noisy" according to the tester hitting close to 14 on the meter. I did throw a Sovtex 12ax7LPS on there just for fun, and it showed pretty noisy too. I guess the real test will be in the amp.
  • As far as power tubes go, I have compared it against some EL34's that I had run through the Maximatcher and that had other matching stickers on them. I tested a set of Apex matched JJ's that showed matched on the Maximatcher and without any surprise they showed matched on the Orange as well. Of course the numbering/matching system is different for all of these. There is no GM on the Orange, but the higher the number is in the range between 1-15, the more "gain" the tube is supposed to have. The way I understand it to work, this applies to both power and preamp tubes.
  • Tested a pair of older =C= EL34's that I've had kicking around for quite a while came back as good/matched on both the Maximatcher and the Orange.
  • Tested several vintage 6V6GT's (RCA and Phillips) and they all tested good and fairly closely matched (mostly 7's and 8's, with one 13).
  • Tested some other brand new tubes that haven't seen an amp yet, with the same results.
    • Brand new quad of EL84's from Nesstone. Showing 33 on the box from Nesstone, Orange tested them as 6/7/7/7. I retested the one that came back as 6 and it tested as 6 a second time.
    • Brand new duet of Mesa 5881's (10 AC GRN) and those both came back as 5's on the Orange meter.
    • Brand new duet of 6V6GT from VivaTubes. Came back on the Orange as a matched pair showing 10's.
  • I also tested a quad of Svetlana EL34's that came out of my 98 Bogner Ecstasy that my amp guy said were "tired and mismatched". He was putting in a new quad at the time, and I kept these as backups. These had been tested on every tester I've had from my Hickok 800 to the Maximatcher. The Hickok showed one of the tubes as bad, and the other as barely good. The Maxi showed three of them as matched, but really low (mid 20's mA) and the Orange showed three as "worn" and one "fail" due to low emissions. So, that backs up what I already new about those tubes.
Now, to the anomalies that I found. I had two Sovtek 6L6's that I had pulled from an amp at some point that I had tested on the Hickok that I had labeled as "Leaking". I tested those on the Orange, and both of them came back as good and nearly matched (one was 6 and one was 7). So, there is a discrepancy there but the Hickok as far as I know had never been calibrated so it's possible that it may have provided an erroneous reading. The best I remember, both of those tubes tested good/strong on the Hickok. The second anomaly was that one of my vintage/NOS preamp tubes came back as a fail on the first test, but when tested again two more times, came back as good both times on the two tests performed after the initial test that showed it as "failed". This tube had been tested on the Hickok, and showed to be good there so I'm inclined to call it a good tube since it passed on the Hickok and two out of three times on the Orange.

Anyway... I've got a lot more new production preamp tubes to test, and a bunch more new production power tubes to test but I thought I'd give my thoughts on how the Orange is working out so far in case anyone was interested.
 
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That's pretty sweet. Interesting to see the comparison of brand numbers/colors to it. I would maybe assume it does some sort of rounding to get to the end result? Like perhaps the 6 was 5.6-6.4 and the 7s were 6.5-7.4, but maybe in this case were all close to the oranges 6.5 compared to nesstone's method landing at 33?
 
I've accumulated a bunch of tubes over the years.. More than I could ever use..
That said, I have my favorites and then others that work with my favorites..
I wonder just how many test good and up to spec..
They ALL definitely have different character.
Single channel amps really reveal this. More complicated amps do better with a thin, bright tube like a Chinese IMO..
 


Im all for gadgets as im an analog freak but i cant justify the cost of an AT-1000 or the Orange.
An old $70 tube tester off CL lets me know everything i need.
As far as tubes go if they're bad you'll be the first to know.
 
I just got mine last night and did some quick microphony tests with 12ax7s I had lying out.
  • JJ = Pulled out of an amp by my local tech who said it was bad. Measured at a 3 without even even tapping, when I did tap it went up to 5.
  • Shuguang1 = Brand new and got the same results as the JJ that was pulled from an amp that was said to be bad.
  • Shuguang2 = Brand new and tested 0, with tapping maybe it'd get to 1 but not always.
I'm not super confident how to interpret these results.

I've got some amps that need some love so will keep testing to see how bad a "3" is on this scale.
 
ners said:
I just got mine last night and did some quick microphony tests with 12ax7s I had lying out.
  • JJ = Pulled out of an amp by my local tech who said it was bad. Measured at a 3 without even even tapping, when I did tap it went up to 5.
  • Shuguang1 = Brand new and got the same results as the JJ that was pulled from an amp that was said to be bad.
  • Shuguang2 = Brand new and tested 0, with tapping maybe it'd get to 1 but not always.
I'm not super confident how to interpret these results.

I've got some amps that need some love so will keep testing to see how bad a "3" is on this scale.
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Agree with the bolded statement up above, and I'm not going to get too wound up by these readings until I experience an actual microphonic tube that I can put into the tester to see how it reacts. I had several tubes that would jump the meter a bit as soon as the test light went green, but would then settle down and wouldn't even register any LED's when I tapped them with the pencil so I don't have a ton of confidence in that part of the process just yet.
 
Just tested all four of the 12ax7s in my GZA Hellion since I've been meaning to swap out one I knew was bad.
  • V1 (known bad) = 3-4 just plugging it in and up to 6 with tapping
  • V2-V4 = 0 to start and 1 with tapping
So based on the 7 I've tested so far we know that starting at 0 and only getting up to 1 LED with tapping means it's most likely good. Starting at 3 is bad, also confirmed by 2 techs/builders prior to me even testing.

So still unsure of how "bad" a 1 or a 2 on the microphony test is...
 
ners said:
Just tested all four of the 12ax7s in my GZA Hellion since I've been meaning to swap out one I knew was bad.
  • V1 (known bad) = 3-4 just plugging it in and up to 6 with tapping
  • V2-V4 = 0 to start and 1 with tapping
So based on the 7 I've tested so far we know that starting at 0 and only getting up to 1 LED with tapping means it's most likely good. Starting at 3 is bad, also confirmed by 2 techs/builders prior to me even testing.

So still unsure of how "bad" a 1 or a 2 on the microphony test is...
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Dang, if 3-4 is bad then I'm in for some serious squealies if when I used some of the vintage tubes.. LOL How did the tube itself test, did the Orange fail it or did it show good and was just noisy?

I'm going to have to throw some of these really noisy ones I've got into V1 on some of my amps and see what happens.
 
War_in_D said:
Dang, if 3-4 is bad then I'm in for some serious squealies if when I used some of the vintage tubes.. LOL How did the tube itself test, did the Orange fail it or did it show good and was just noisy?

I'm going to have to throw some of these really noisy ones I've got into V1 on some of my amps and see what happens.
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They all tested green at 8/9/8/10-11 which my understanding is pretty good for a preamp tube to be testing a single number (V4 had a blinking 10 and solid 11 though).

So that 3-4 on the microphony was squealy but it was in V1, which I think is the most sensitive. So it could be very usable further down the circuit...though there are far more knowledgeable people on here than me.
 
ners said:
They all tested green at 8/9/8/10-11 which my understanding is pretty good for a preamp tube to be testing a single number (V4 had a blinking 10 and solid 11 though).

So that 3-4 on the microphony was squealy but it was in V1, which I think is the most sensitive. So it could be very usable further down the circuit...though there are far more knowledgeable people on here than me.
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The blinking/solid light means that Triode A is the blinking one, and Triode B is the solid. If you got just a solid non-blinking light then both halves of the tube tested the same. So they would be considered "balanced", which would work really well in the PI slot in the amp. If V1 was a solid 8, but noisy, try moving it to the phase inverter spot and take that 10-11 and move it to V1. The 10-11 tube would be higher gain than the 8, if that's what your after and you don't need a balanced tube in V1 really.
 
Tested all the tubes in my Monomyth Skeleton Key...
  • JJ (V1? V4?)
    • Green = 8 Blinking 9
    • Microphony = Blinking 1, never above with tapping
  • Ruby
    • Green = 9
    • Microphony= 0 tapping 0
  • Tad
    • Green = 9
    • Microphony = 0 tapping 3
  • Tad
    • Green = 9
    • Microphony = 0 tapping 5+ but only a couple times, otherwise 0
Shae recently tuned this up and put in new EHX EL34s I provided, they both tested green with one at 8 and the other at 7. Not sure if the expectation is for new tubes to be closer to 15 or not given 5 and below is considered "worn".
 
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ners said:
Not sure if the expectation is for new tubes to be closer to 15 or not given 5 and below is considered "worn".
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I don't know, but I'm guessing that 15 is set as the highest they expect tubes to test on that particular parameter (emission?), and does not mean "perfect tube". Instead it's just "we've never come across tubes higher than this."
 
7704A said:
I don't know, but I'm guessing that 15 is set as the highest they expect tubes to test on that particular parameter (emission?), and does not mean "perfect tube". Instead it's just "we've never come across tubes higher than this."
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Wow, this whole thing sounds way too confusing
 
ners said:
Yeah Orange really should provide a bit more guidance on how to use these numbers.
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I kind of agree with some aspects of this, but this tester isn't meant to give minute details of the tubes it tests and it's not really marketed that way. It's mainly there to tell you:
  1. If your power tube(s) is/are good/worn/bad and provides a matching number so you can compare it to existing power tubes or make up your own duets/quads out of random tubes you might have laying around. The manual states that the higher the number, the higher the "gain" but doesn't state what "gain" means exactly. So, I 100% agree with your statement above in that regard. Does higher gain mean earlier breakup, or more headroom?
  2. Is your preamp tube good/worn/bad, and what the two halves of the triode are doing from a "gain" standpoint (as well as letting you know if the two halves are balanced) and then then noise inherent into the tube (although I'm skeptical of this at the moment until I can try it out in the real world). To use this information effectively you need to know something about the circuit you're using that particular tube in. There are WAY more folks here more qualified to speak to this but it's my understanding that many multichannel amps will utilize the two halves of the V1 preamp tube by having Triode 1 on the clean side and Triode 2 as the first gain stage of the overdrive channel. So, by knowing the gain numbers you can tailor what tube you want to be in V1 (lower gain number in Triode 1 to keep the clean side cleaner, and higher gain number on Triode 2 to help goose the following gain stages, etc.). It's also helpful in determining what tubes to use in the PI slot (general consensus is that a balanced tube here is best). But again and to your point, Orange chose to split their triodes into A/B instead of 1/2, so what the heck does that mean exactly? I'm assuming that A is triode 1 and B is triode 2, but you know what happens we folks assume. LOL
Anyway.. It's meant to be a tool that the "everyday" tube amp user can employ to give them insight into the tubes they are using and I think it's a great tool for that if Orange can clear up what "gain" means in regards to power tubes and exactly how A/B relates to triode 1/2 in a 12ax7.

That being said, if a person is looking to get actual meaningful numbers they need to invest in a tube tester or Maximatcher/MaxiPreamp.
 
psychodave said:
If you want to mess around, I’m willing to test some of your tubes on my maxi-matcher so you can get an idea of what’s going on. I’d record all testing for verification.
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Appreciate the offer but I've got a Maximatcher here, just not a Maxipreamp. I was holding off buying the Orange MKII while I looked for a used Maxipreamp but they are like trying to find hen's teeth. They just don't come up for sale. Which was part of the reasoning behind buying the Orange MKII. I also wanted to wait until US sellers had them in stock. I thought that if after testing tubes that I know are matched with the Maximatcher, if the Orange MKII shows to match power tubes as consistently then I might move the Maximatcher on down the road since the Orange MKII could match both power tubes and tell me what was going on with preamp tubes and that would be enough for my needs. I may end up keeping the Maximatcher though, and continue to look for a used Maxipreamp just to have around. If I can complete the set, I might move the Orange MII instead. LOL
 
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