Don't start me with tube amps right now!!!
My SVT has just broken down again, it always reliably does. I read these amazing stories about people and their SVTs, roadworn and same set of tubes for 20 years. Not mine. I bought it (new) around 2004 or so. It was the Anniversary series, and it has all its tubes exchanged twice already since then. It's never gigged (I'd never trust it to work going from A to B with the experiences I've had!), not very often played, it just sits in a perfectly dry and heated rehearsal room and does nothing most of the time. It wasn't even played for the last two years or so (I had left that particular band, the amp was still mothballed in their rehearsal space), still all I get now is distortion at very low volume and the master volume obviously not working at all (full gain and full master = you can barely hear the signal and it is all distorted, brittle and keeps cutting out). I know the symptom, it is always followed by full replacement of all tubes. I find two - very soon: three - complete tube replacements in an amp over a period of 12 years (with the amp being played once a week at the most) unreasonably much.
No other piece of equipment has ever done this to me. Not Dynacord, not H&H, not Reußenzehn, not Peavey, not Ashdown, not Markbass, not Orange. That SVT is jinxed.
Rant over!
