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From: bill@vrdxhq.verdix.com (William Spencer)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: Re: Tubes or Transistors: The Matching Game
Message-ID: <8732@uwm.edu>
Date: 7 Jan 91 13:54:52 GMT
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Approved: tjk@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Originator: tjk@csd4.csd.uwm.edu


in article <8687@uwm.edu>, jhess@orion.oac.uci.edu (James Hess) says:
> In article <8547@uwm.edu> chu@ims.alaska.edu (Chirk Chu) writes:

>>Power here in Fairbanks, Alaska is not the best in the world. The other day
>>the power went down just for a fraction of a second. The resulting power
>>surge promptly killed a driver tube (6201) and a output tube (EL34) in one
>>of my VTL 225W monoblock. 

> While I can't speak authoritatively on this specific design, in general Chirk 
> is wrong--tubes are more tolerant of overloads and surges than transistors.  
> Faults that would take minutes to seriously damage tubes will eat transistors 
  ^^^^^^
> in milliseconds.

I think you said it: Faults. It's very possible that an overload condition
would not have resulted in a different amp design. Especially if this was
a result of a power dip without overvoltage. Or it could have been that 
the tubes were ready to go. It seems that these higher power tube amps have 
a lot more trouble than low powered ones.


bill S.