The Last Bass Outpost

Sixty degrees outside, most beautiful day we've had in four months and I have a nasty cold...feel like someone beat me with a stick.  Fought it off for three days but it nailed me today.

And I was hoping to play 9 holes today....couldn't even hold a club that long.  Had to cancel a dinner invitation with a prospective drummer and his wife, too.

Hopefully better tomorrow.  For now, holed up watching westerns on satellite TV.

Mark and Scott, I don't have the technical knowledge that Psycho Bass Guy does, but I do know that you don't need to be carrying spare tubes to gigs. If you have an amp that's actually blowing tubes so often that you have to carry spares, then you have an amp problem, not a tube problem, and you need to get that taken care of. Tubes last for years.

I'm coming from the same place, Dave.  I don't claim to have the tech knowledge to discuss this at the circuit level, I'm more an "applied-practical" guy.  That's why I asked my two questions earlier...how to tell if a tube is problematic, and how to identify which tube.  If there aren't good answers, then having spare tubes serves no function.  (EDIT: the comments above in reply #30 indicate that there are some cases in which a tube might be ID'd as a problem...although I doubt that I could do as well.) And I agree, most tubes last for years or decades.

Regardless of the cause of an amp failure, if it's anything other than a blown fuse (and one that's externally user-accessible, which many are not), my contention is that you're unlikely to fix it during a gig. Seems to me that the best fix is either a spare head or a stout PA system and a DI.

Meanwhile, I'm curious to know how the head is working out at gigs....Mark said he might be using it soon.

Ahem -

If I may interrupt, can someone tell me how they determine in the field:

1) That a tube has failed, and;

2) If so, which tube?

It seems to me that unless both of these can be achieved without testing equipment, the issue of carrying tubes into the field is moot.

I inherited some wood project books from my dad, most of which date to the early 50's.  How old they were jumped out at me when I checked out the Adirondack chair project.  The materials list shows cypress as the primary wood.

I wonder how many decades it has been since cypress was available in lumber yards?  It went away a looooong time ago!

I carry spares and have used them.

Tell me - how do you determine which tube is faulty?  No glow?  This has always been a stopper for me...perhaps I've missed something!

Her music isn't my thing, but I think she's a slick marketer and has been clever in finding a niche.  And there's talent there, too.  No complaints here.

Ah, the plague of slippery shoes....never a good thing.