I am sick of failing amplifiers

[Balle Clorin]

I would disagree. A point to point wired tube amp will be easy to repair. On the other hand, if Technics for example stops making a circuit board, it will be difficult to replace an integrated circuit.

The point is to buy quality to avoid repairs in the first place I think, not point to point wiring or not. I reputable brand will be more likely to last than a small backyard company , I think .

If it is properly made it does not break ,No repair is required, My Technics SU-A900Mk2 till still fine working 32 years after I bought it, even if the transistors may not be available any more. My Marantz CD63mkII Signature also works fine after 30 years. Original poster obviously had a poorly designed and poorly manufactured product, beeing point to point wired does not help then. It reminds me of certain crappy C@£$€€ tube amplifiers that used to hum and fail all the time.. Look cool but sound bad and fail. Properly designed tube amps does not fail either, my Cayin 300B point-to-point wired I had for 15 years without any problem, before selling it for twice what I paid for it.

It is a bit like buying cars, some people buy some Korean car because of the 7year warranty, then it must must be good right?. I buy my Toyota with 5 years warranty. Or buying a Alfa Romeo, nice design and looks good , but faults and failures all the time...
After 10 years the Korean car is rusty failing and going to the scrap yard, while I am still driving my Toyota after 20 years without the need for any repairs, just change oil and tyres.. And the Alfa ? it is in the garage beeing restored to former glory

 

[Zeotrope]

I think you are confusing a few things.
1)Quality components can be purchased by anyone. You don't have to be Technics to buy good parts. Actually, the high end manufacturers usually buy better quality parts.
2) PCBs are much harder to repair than point to point. Good luck getting an IC replaced on a board. It's MUCH easier to remove a defective component from a point to point wired board.
I doubt your Technics sounds as good as it did after 32 years. Nothing against the company or how well it's made- you probably need new caps.

Automotive: you are talking to a former Toyota Mfg Eng from Japan (me). I no longer drive Toyota. Quality is not what it was 20+ years ago. Around that time they started focusing on profit, not quality. My brand new at the time 2011 Lexus was not well engineered and had a couple of unacceptable defects. When Toyota refused to fix, I moved on. To be honest, I've had excellent reliability from numerous Mercedes I have owned since -- and I can own a car that's best quality is not (perceived) quality! But that's another story for another forum.

Summary: if you want a component to last 'forever', I'm with you. The fewest # of parts the better with few to ideally no, PCBs, are your best bet. A small company that hand selects parts is also going to be far better than a mass market company.

 

[Kingrex]

I don't have a failure issue. I have more a design issue. I believe the amp is too cramped in the enclosure. It should be laid out better. And its impossible to work on as it sits into a one.piece enclosure with a solid bottom. Only access is to pull everything out.

I hear a new one at the dealers. It wasn't any better. Its just a poor design.
It does have a CB for the caps in the power supply. Most other stuff is point to point.

 

[Atmasphere]

I got the amps back. Fundamentally they seem fine. They are audibly noisy. Not as much as before. Enough to be heard. Not so much its overly annoying.
They have a bloomey midrange with a notable role off in the high end. The bass is pleasing and full to midbass. But I'm confident they are rolling off the low end too. My speakers limit a real evaluation of this.
I used them for about 2 weeks then put them in a box to be forgotten about. The Blade is just light years better in clarity and balance and speed. The Audion is more lush in the midbass. The noise, lack of extension and lesser resolution make them a back up or really a piece to sell. Time to move on.

You might want to let the amp sit on a set of speakers somewhere for another week or two so as to allow it to break in and see if it sounds any different. I know many people think break-in isn't a thing, but we've got far too much feedback to the contrary to entertain that notion- even our class D amps require break-in (about 450 hours) to really sound right, something we didn't expect at all.

But I find myself in agreement with some comments here; it might be time to move on as you say. I think maybe a good idea to go with something a bit more... established?? If you want a nice amp that doesn't break the bank, you might look into Jim McShane's renovated Citation 2 amplifiers. The Citation 2 was one of the best amps made in the classic era and was extremely competent. Jim's work on them is excellent.

 

[Kingrex]

Thanks, Ralph. I have a fantastic transdormer coupled, differential design PP Kt88. All Monolith. Amaziimg. Best I have heard on multiple levels. A little lean on bass body. But accurate.

I just want a set for some of the Bloom. I will let it go longer. It probably had 100 hours on it. I will give it more time. Maybe role a couple tubes.

 

[Kingrex]

If I want a SET moving forward, which I know you have reservation about Ralph, I would have a local company, Apollo Audio bring one over. I want to hear it first.

 

[Argonaut]

I have a fantastic transdormer coupled, differential design PP Kt88. All Monolith.

Excellent Iron …

 

[godofwealth]

Since we are all sharing tales of woe, let me add to our collective commiseration with my own experiences. I have had numerous failures with high end equipment for 40 years. In the beginning, it was largely the CD transports that used to fail (dCS, Mark Levinson, etc.), since I ran solid state gear. As I got more into tubes, I had no issues initially for a few years with ARC, but recently as I got into SETs and other tube manufacturers, the problems have mounted, especially since you tend to use NOS tubes. With my Lampizator Pacific, I had a series of tube failures, and finally found some reliable tubes that I am sticking with, and not tube rolling as much. My Quicksilver 8417 failed multiple times, but Mike Sanders is great guy who lives just 100 miles from my house, and was able to fix them. They are working fine now for the past couple of years, although given the age of the amps, they have developed a bit of transformer hum that Mike says is unavoidable with older amplifiers. My JJ 322 SET that uses a parallel pair of 300Bs blew up a few months ago when driving my Quads, and had to shipped off to George Meyer AV in LA. They fixed it, and it now sounds splendid.

All of this has made me look for cool running solid state gear that's light and reliable. I was thrilled to have purchased the Mola Mola Makua all in one preamp and Kaluga class D mono blocks. They have been bullet proof for the past 2 years, and my go to electronics in the hot summer months (particular this year the Bay Area had many 100 degree days). I am not getting younger, so the days of my schlepping 200 pound tube amplifiers is going to come to an end pretty soon. I'm guessing my Mola Mola's will be my long-term reference going forwards.

I have several SETs that so far have worked reliably. One is a Cary 300B SE, which looks really well built, and I use it with my Klipsch La Scala. The other is a 421a SET built by Oliver Sayes. The 421a is a Western Electric power tube that can drive both channels up to 3 watts. I get a kick of out running the massive La Scalas with one power tube for both channels. Doesn't get simpler than that. The WE 421a is the sleeper tube of the century. It sounds better to my ears than the WE 300B, and the prices are still reasonable. Finally, I have a Triode Labs 45 mono block, and although that company has gone belly up, the amplifier seems well built. All of these (except for Cary) look like 1-man garage built pieces, so don't expect ARC quality with this type of gear. The prices are all much lower than what you pay for with ARC.

I am intrigued by Atmasphere not blowing up a resistor when a tube goes. Sadly, my ARC gear does blow up the sacrificial 1 ohm resistor when a tube goes (and the newer KT150 tubes seem to blow up more often than the previous tubes). The most recent ARC gear blows up a fuse instead of a resistor. It seems that a tube amplifier that blows up a tube should continue to work if it uses a large number of tubes in the output stage. Not sure why ARC can't design such an amp.