bordonbert
- Posts : 1772
Join date : 2015-01-28
Age : 72
Location : Southern England
by bordonbert Tue Nov 14, 2017 2:17 am
That's very unlucky Wicked4Play. I think you are right in your assessment that it is the EL84 which is at fault. I can promise you that the build quality is at least as good as anything you will find anywhere. It's German engineering at its best. As a user forum where we genuinely try to help people with technical problems, it's amazing how few problems of this sort we actually get reported. One of the most common is that original fitting output valve having burn in issues and any amp can suffer from that. My own GM36 had a strange episode once where one valve seemed to go into runaway and glowed red hot. I frantically switched the amp off and sat there shaken. When I turned it back on it behaved impeccably and hasn't done anything like it since. In my case the fault was controlled by the TSC until the valve cleared itself.
According to H&K when I asked them, the choice of valves is deliberately bland as they know most users intend to swap them out as soon as they get the amp, so why put in good more expensive ones and have to pass that on to all their customers. That's the way we have allowed ourselves to be made to think nowadays, it is stupid but true. We love the sound of the amp when we audition and buy it but we think it is inevitable that the stock valves sound like s**te so they will have to go? What is the point of making the amp more expensive at point of sale when the thing they are putting more money into is going to be thrown away by the majority of people who want to buy it.
I can understand how you feel, I would feel that way too but if you love the sound of the amp I would really advise you to stick with it until the new head comes. At least they have shown that there will be no problems with replacement in the extremely unlucky event of a failure. The TSC is a bit of a sacrificial lamb. It not only controls the output valves but it carries the brunt of their misbehaviour too. Have faith!
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