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charles rollo charles rollo is offline
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Location: NYC
Posts: 5
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never used them until well after the 30 day time frame. Which Grant was aware of.
One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies. Costing me $1500 to repair.
Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days expires. For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something fishy going on as the distributor.
No no and no is the answer from them. Buyer beware. Stay away.


charles
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PeterD PeterD is offline
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Posts: 124
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:37:21 +0000, charles rollo
wrote:


Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less
than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never
used them until well after the 30 day time frame.


And that was Grant's fault, how?

Which Grant was aware
of.


So?

One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies.
Costing me $1500 to repair.


Must have been some quality amp that had no protection for a simple
tube failure.

Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days
expires.


And you didn't think to buy the lifetime warranted tubes? And you
didn't buy the tubes that offered coverage for colatteral damage?

For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American
distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something
fishy going on as the distributor.


What's fishy?

No no and no is the answer from them.


And no is the answer anyone would give you.

Buyer beware. Stay away.


Why is this 'wrong'? They stated a warranty, you accepted the warranty
terms, and then you feel cheated... Bad logic!





charles

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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 17, 12:37*am, charles rollo charles.rollo.
wrote:
Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less
than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never
used them until well after the 30 day time frame. Which Grant was aware
of.
One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies.
Costing me $1500 to repair.
Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days
expires. For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American
distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something
fishy going on as the distributor.
No no and no is the answer from them. Buyer beware. Stay away.

charles

--
charles rollo


Your 211 tubes would appear to be made at Tianjin, China, who also
make 845 tubes.

I had a customer here who had bought a pair of Ming-Da monoblocs which
require a pair of 845 per channel. One of the existing 845 which came
with the amps was an old Shuguang type 845C in which the welding from
wire to anode inside the tube had broken. This caused the PP output
circuit to operate with only one tube and the sound was bad and this
tube overheated. Luckily no transformers were damaged. One could
always have a tube with a bad weld which was not spotted during
quality control and which took 200 hours before it fatigued and broke.
One could see the weld was dodgy when comparing the tube to others.
Anyway, the owner bought a quad of Tianjin 845, and they just didn't
work and they just caused fuses to blow.
He brings his Chinese Horror Quality amps to me and I completely
rewire them so they won't blow up nor sustain damage from failing
tubes and so he can easily set the bias.

I tried the TJ tubes after my mods and they all arced over internally,
so I built a test circuit so I coulod examine each 845 more fully, and
even with only 1,100Vdc at ther anodes, they still arced over.
My client returned the TJ 845 from where he purchased them, with
copies of emails between myself and himself.

My customer bought Shuguang typeB latest good quality and has had no
troubles now after 12 months.

Despite seeing an example of one bad weld in an old Shuguang, the
Shuguang internal build quality is generally FAR SUPERIOR to the over-
priced crap coming from the TJ factory.

So it comes as no surprise that you are having bothers with the TJ
211, and as you may know the 211 and 845 have very similar internal
construction and it is conceivable that what is drastically wrong with
a TJ845, may also be wrong with 211, ie, the tube has a built in fire
cracker nobody wants.

Of course we must ask what kind of protection circuirts does your
amplifer have to prevent mis-behaving output tubes from damaging OPTs
and PTs? Only a complete fool would allow himself to own a tube amp
with 211 or 845 within and without any form of adequate active
protection measures. Of course ppl who enjoy the wonderful way such
tubes deliver music when they do work properly do not consciously try
to be fools, and they do so rather unintentionally because they just
see the bright up side of the purchase and none of the down side and
possible disasters awaiting them because the manufacturers of both the
amplifiers and the tubes don't want anyone to realise there could be
problems. Does it not occur to you that a 30 day warranty is rather a
crummy warranty which implies, "Watch out - possible Fire Cracker
within".

When I built a air of mono blocs using 845, I put in the active
protections to prevent excessive anode current from causing smoke. See
my page abd read carefully...
http://www.turneraudio.com.au/monobloc845se55.html

I am one of the only tube amp manufacturers who includes active
protection against bias failures and against runaway anode current.

Much of my work over the last 15 years has been to make tube amps
smoke free and to give them singing lessons with soldering iron and
long nose pliers. Many good brand name amps have been on my bench,
ARC, Quad, Leak, Manley Labs, Dynaco, VTL, and many others from China
which I cannot say are good brandnames.

Today, the range of products forsale is utterly mind boggling, and
sellers can have real bothers if they are responsible for the failures
of things they sell but don't make. Here in Oz, a dealer or store is
legally responsible for product failures prior to warranty expiry. But
we have cases where stores tell customers to take the product back to
the maker; they don't like having to replace an item or act on behalf
of a customer and get a replacement from a maker. There are forces
ranged against the Bloke in the Street who buys something at a shop.
Just be aware of your rights, and the terms of the trading and about
what happens if things malfunction. Most ppl are not the slightest bit
technically minded and they just don't know what questions to ask
about the tube operated product they are buying; they are often
naively stunned by the very low initial price - courtesy of the slave
labour in China working for less than 1/20 of your wage.

BTW, had you managed to buy KR audio 211 for your amps the purchase
price may have been +15dB more than the Shuguang price. But whether
the KR tube is better sounding or not is anyone's guess. But KR have a
1 year+ warranty.
The KR 845 tube is the best looking 845 I have ever seen - definately
the work of dedicated old European master craftsmen as opposed to the
trained monkeys working for a pittance in China. HOWEVER, the KR tubes
have oxide coated directly heated dull emitter cathodes rather like
the 300B and one suspects the cathodes may not have as long a life at
Ea = 1,000Vdc as would the bright emitter tungsten cathodes of old RCA
845 AND the Shuguang types. My opinion is that the KR tubes might
suffer from positive ion bombardment and erosion rather too early in
the tube's life compared to the thoriated tungsten cathode which is
virtually imune to such bombardment. The ion bombardment only becomes
a problem when anode voltages become higher than around 800V because
the voltage difference determines the ion speed of travel and the
higher the speed, the greater the damage. If this were not tru then
all HV tubes would have the easier cheaper more efficient dull emitter
type of cathodes, or indirectly heater cathodes with oxide coatings.

I hope you learn to be more wary in future. So don't be too ****ed off
with your troubles; you could have spent more and got less
satisfaction in any number of ways. I was once married to Marilyn
Munroe, and boy, she cost so much to run and things went wrong all the
time.

Patrick Turner.

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charles rollo charles rollo is offline
Junior Member
 
Location: NYC
Posts: 5
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterD View Post
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:37:21 +0000, charles rollo
wrote:


Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less
than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never
used them until well after the 30 day time frame.


And that was Grant's fault, how?

Which Grant was aware
of.


So?

One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies.
Costing me $1500 to repair.


Must have been some quality amp that had no protection for a simple
tube failure.

Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days
expires.


And you didn't think to buy the lifetime warranted tubes? And you
didn't buy the tubes that offered coverage for colatteral damage?

For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American
distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something
fishy going on as the distributor.


What's fishy?

No no and no is the answer from them.


And no is the answer anyone would give you.

Buyer beware. Stay away.


Why is this 'wrong'? They stated a warranty, you accepted the warranty
terms, and then you feel cheated... Bad logic!





charles
Well, first of all the Opera/Consonance Cyber 211 amp is sold by Grant Fidelity as a quality amp. There is NO lifetime warranty to be had for the tubes. Full Music has changed the design now three times, wonder why. THEY FAIL THATS WHY. So the customer is left holding the bag. Brilliant !!!
The fact that the tube shorted in less than 30 days and was not discovered as the culprit until after the 30 days were up is the issue. Grant helped me get the Trannies from Opera [ great job] but it took several months to aquire. We could not test the tube until the amp was repaired. So the time frame was over 30 days with no fault on my end.
If the tube just failed I would just go away. However damage costing serious money because of a poor product is not my fault. Where is the customer service ?
My NOS RCA and GE 211s have a minimum of 2000 hours on them with zero issues. One would expect a new production tube that costs approx $500 / pair to last more than 150 hours, thats not asking to much is it ?
I am NOT looking for my money back just one tube to replace the failed one. Grant Fidelity and Full music have abandoned me. That is my issue lack of customer service. This is a special case. Damage was done. Serious expensive damage. The least they could do is offer a tube.
Whats fishy is the facts about the amp and tube combination, since Grant is the distributor of both maybe it was a poor choice for the Oper amp. I should have been warned or told the a shorted tube may cause damage. what is also fishy is the Distributor statis as well as the quality of the tube, again redesigned three times. Why should the customer bare the issues until Full Music gets it right.
BTW are you affiiated with Grant or full Music, cause it appears that way to me. I repeat buyer beware, stay away.

charles
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charles rollo charles rollo is offline
Junior Member
 
Location: NYC
Posts: 5
Default

Thanks for the response. A firecracker for sure. No the Opera Cyber 211 amp has no protection circuit. The tube shorted. Since the amp has no protection circuit and the tubes have a history IMO Grant Fidelity should have never sold me the tubes. They sell the Amp as well.
My NOS tubes have zero issues were less expensive and are still going strong. Never again.
Thanks for the link, I will have my tech take a look and design a protection circuit. Are you in the US ?


charles


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NX211 NX211 is offline
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Posts: 11
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 16, 10:37*am, charles rollo charles.rollo.
wrote:
Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less
than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never
used them until well after the 30 day time frame. Which Grant was aware
of.
One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies.
Costing me $1500 to repair.
Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days
expires. For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American
distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something
fishy going on as the distributor.
No no and no is the answer from them. Buyer beware. Stay away.

charles

--
charles rollo


I had a new KT90 arc in the base from the plate to the filament and
literally melt down with only 50 hrs on the tube. How do you explain
that to the guy you bought the tubes from. Not too cool.

Also had a new KT120 with about 75 hrs on it fail from a bad
connection on one of the filament pins. Then again, bought some JJ
KT77's with something floating around in one of them and it arced
internally with a big flash when installed. I knew I should have
immediately sent it back before installing it but I didn't - and I got
burned. These aren't operational problems with the amp but poor
quality control from tube manufactures.

Also bought some cheap Chinese 6L6GC's with hundreds of hrs on them
now and the perform flawlessly. You don't necessarily get what you
pay for when it comes to vacuum tubes.

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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 18, 1:56*am, charles rollo charles.rollo.
wrote:
PeterD;915686 Wrote:





On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:37:21 +0000, charles rollo
wrote:
-


Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less
than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never
used them until well after the 30 day time frame. -


And that was Grant's fault, how?
-
Which Grant was aware
of. -


So?
-
One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies.
Costing me $1500 to repair. -


Must have been some quality amp that had no protection for a simple
tube failure.
-
Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days
expires. -


And you didn't think to buy the lifetime warranted tubes? And you
didn't buy the tubes that offered coverage for colatteral damage?
-
For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American
distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something
fishy going on as the distributor. -


What's fishy?
-
No no and no is the answer from them. -


And no is the answer anyone would give you.
-
Buyer beware. Stay away.-


Why is this 'wrong'? They stated a warranty, you accepted the warranty
terms, and then you feel cheated... Bad logic!


-


charles-


Well, first of all the Opera/Consonance Cyber 211 amp is sold by Grant
Fidelity as a quality amp. There is NO lifetime warranty to be had for
the tubes. Full Music has changed the design now three times, wonder
why. THEY FAIL THATS WHY. So the customer is left holding the bag.
Brilliant !!!
The fact that the tube shorted in less than 30 days and was not
discovered as the culprit until after the 30 days were up is the issue.
Grant helped me get the Trannies from Opera [ great job] but it took
several months to aquire. We could not test the tube until the amp was
repaired.


I had arcing (failing) 845 tubes from TJ and I went to my workshop and
immediately cobbled up a test rig in 2 hours.

But then I have the workshop and skills. Ordinary ppl don't have
either and are at the mercy of the tube makers and amp makers.

Why don't amp makers include reliable protection circuits to prevent
PT and OPT damage?

They don't mind if you sustain amp damage from tubes malfunctioning
because they know you'll be back for more tubes, or a new amp or spare
parts.

The same applies to nearly all common brands of solid state amps which
are the vast majority brought to me for repair needed due to output
transistor failure after the so called protection circuits have not
worked.

There are no amp makers which fit a simple IC based circuit which
detects if a load of less than 2 ohms is connected and then turns off
the amp if there is. Such low loads occur when speakers malfunction or
when owners use speaker leads with short circuits. at least 70% of amp
failures are due to speakers or leads and the amp makers don't feel
responsible for problems not of their own making, and see no reason to
add the extra 50c worth of electronics to protect the amps when lead
or speaker problems lead to failures.


So the time frame was over 30 days with no fault on my end.
If the tube just failed I would just go away. However damage costing
serious money because of a poor product is not my fault.


Opera / Consonance and TJ tubes are both as bad as each other. They
just make amps using slave labour in China and they both don't give a
****ing rat's arse about gullible western nation buyers.

Where is the
customer service ?
My NOS RCA and GE 211s have a minimum of 2000 hours on them with zero
issues. One would expect a new production tube that costs approx $500 /
pair to last more than 150 hours, thats not asking to much is it ?


It is asking a hell of a lot from something made in China.

The Chinese don't appear to have any psychological ability for the
necessary deep self criticism of anything they do.

They don't like being wrong.

However, it is a noble thing to criticise yourself and permanently
think that whatever you make could fail or cause problems unless one
works to avoid such problems. This is maturity.

Its often been said they don't like "Losing Face", ie, they don't like
it when some **** reminds them that their **** really stinks a lot.

I hope the Chinese reading this understand that the man who makes no
mistakes makes nothing.


And its good we have the Internet because we can discuss these things
and whenever someone Googles a search on TJ 211 or Full Music 2121
then they will see this discussion come up.

This helps the buyer to become aware.

How will buyers be aware of possible problems unless we have free
speach?


I am NOT looking for my money back just one tube to replace the failed
one. Grant Fidelity and Full music have abandoned me. That is my issue
lack of customer service. This is a special case. Damage was done.
Serious expensive damage. The least they could do is offer a tube.
Whats fishy is the facts about the amp and tube combination, since
Grant is the distributor of both maybe it was a poor choice for the Oper
amp. I should have been warned or told the a shorted tube may cause
damage. what is also fishy is the Distributor statis as well as the
quality of the tube, again redesigned three times. Why should the
customer bare the issues until Full Music gets it right.
BTW are you affiiated with Grant or full Music, cause it appears that
way to me. I repeat buyer beware, stay away.


**** happens with any product and you can often be caught out when the
combination of poor amp design and poor quality tubes leads to un-
wanted expense.

So, to avoid such excessive transformer replacements in future, what
has been done to the amps to provide active protection when the next
tube decides to conduct too much current?

Patrick Turner.

charles

--
charles rollo- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


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Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 18, 8:17*am, NX211 wrote:
On Aug 16, 10:37*am, charles rollo charles.rollo.





wrote:
Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less
than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never
used them until well after the 30 day time frame. Which Grant was aware
of.
One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies.
Costing me $1500 to repair.
Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days
expires. For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American
distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something
fishy going on as the distributor.
No no and no is the answer from them. Buyer beware. Stay away.


charles


--
charles rollo


I had a new KT90 arc in the base from the plate to the filament and
literally melt down with only 50 hrs on the tube. How do you explain
that to the guy you bought the tubes from. *Not too cool.


I bought about 20 KT90s from New Sensor some years ago and fitted 8 to
a 8585 stereo amp which has B+ at 480Vdc.
Not one has failed early. But KT90 made in the old EI yugoslavia
factory were very prone to malfunction and failure if they become red
hot due to a speake cable short.

Also had a new KT120 with about 75 hrs on it fail from a bad
connection on one of the filament pins. Then again, bought some JJ
KT77's with something floating around in one of them and it arced
internally with a big flash when installed. *I knew I should have
immediately sent it back before installing it but I didn't - and I got
burned. * These aren't operational problems with the amp but poor
quality control from tube manufactures.



New Sensor test most tubes during the grading and matching process and
they don't rely on the makers in Russia to do it. Maybe New Sensor
discard 5% of the tubes sent to them from the factory. The number of
failures is not publicised for obvious reasons lest it create the
opinion that tubes are all dodgy and you are lucky to get any which
work properly.

But Quality Control during tube production ALWAYS was a problem in
itself because HUMANS are much involved doing repetitious work. And
its mainly womens work. Anyway, if you worked in a tube factory you'd
know just how easy it is for **** to happen.

I have had bad soldering of wires to tube bas pins and its easily
fixed by re-soldering. In all my amps there is active protection and
the amp just cannot remain turned on if any single output tube
malfunctions in a manner which leads to excessive cathode currents.


Also bought some cheap Chinese 6L6GC's with hundreds of hrs on them
now and the perform flawlessly. *You don't necessarily get what you
pay for when it comes to vacuum tubes.- Hide quoted text -


If you get 95% of what you pay for then this is good because if all
tube production was being done in the USA or Oz or UK like it once
used to be done then you'd be paying +20dB more for the tubes because
of the much higher cost of labour and compliance with workplace safety
regulations.

I cannot understand someone buying an expensive KT120 when 2 6L6GC can
give similar power. But in Guitar amp land there are those who will
buy anything offered.

Patrick Turner

- Show quoted text -


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NX211 NX211 is offline
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Posts: 11
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 17, 7:38*pm, Patrick Turner wrote:
On Aug 18, 8:17*am, NX211 wrote:



On Aug 16, 10:37*am, charles rollo charles.rollo.


wrote:
Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less
than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never
used them until well after the 30 day time frame. Which Grant was aware
of.
One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies.
Costing me $1500 to repair.
Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days
expires. For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American
distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something
fishy going on as the distributor.
No no and no is the answer from them. Buyer beware. Stay away.


charles


--
charles rollo


I had a new KT90 arc in the base from the plate to the filament and
literally melt down with only 50 hrs on the tube. How do you explain
that to the guy you bought the tubes from. *Not too cool.


I bought about 20 KT90s from New Sensor some years ago and fitted 8 to
a 8585 stereo amp which has B+ at 480Vdc.
Not one has failed early. *But KT90 made in the old EI yugoslavia
factory were very prone to malfunction and failure if they become red
hot due to a speake cable short.

Also had a new KT120 with about 75 hrs on it fail from a bad
connection on one of the filament pins. Then again, bought some JJ
KT77's with something floating around in one of them and it arced
internally with a big flash when installed. *I knew I should have
immediately sent it back before installing it but I didn't - and I got
burned. * These aren't operational problems with the amp but poor
quality control from tube manufactures.


New Sensor test most tubes during the grading and matching process and
they don't rely on the makers in Russia to do it. Maybe New Sensor
discard 5% of the tubes sent to them from the factory. The number of
failures is not publicised for obvious reasons lest it create the
opinion that tubes are all dodgy and you are lucky to get any which
work properly.

But Quality Control during tube production ALWAYS was a problem in
itself because HUMANS are much involved doing repetitious work. And
its mainly womens work. Anyway, if you worked in a tube factory you'd
know just how easy it is for **** to happen.

I have had bad soldering of wires to tube bas pins and its easily
fixed by re-soldering. In all my amps there is active protection and
the amp just cannot remain turned on if any single output tube
malfunctions in a manner which leads to excessive cathode currents.

Also bought some cheap Chinese 6L6GC's with hundreds of hrs on them
now and the perform flawlessly. *You don't necessarily get what you
pay for when it comes to vacuum tubes.- Hide quoted text -


If you get 95% of what you pay for then this is good because if all
tube production was being done in the USA or Oz or UK like it once
used to be done then you'd be paying +20dB more for the tubes because
of the much higher cost of labour and compliance with workplace safety
regulations.

I cannot understand someone buying an expensive KT120 when 2 6L6GC can
give similar power. But in Guitar amp land there are those who will
buy anything offered.

Patrick Turner



- Show quoted text -


Ah - KT120's are neat tubes. They'll work in most amps that use
KT88's, etc. and you'll run out of power supply way before you run out
of tube. $100.00 and they'll last for years if you get a good pair.
Put 600 or 700 volts on them and they'll rock your neighborhood.
  #10   Report Post  
Rachel @ Grant Fidelity Rachel @ Grant Fidelity is offline
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Posts: 2
Default

Some background information:

Where is Charles's Cyber 211 from? - according to Charles, it was purchased from Opera in China by Charles' cousin (some important businessman with great relationship with Chinese government. He was treated like royalty at Opera - as per Charles) about 3-4 years ago. It was not purchased in USA. Opera even paid for shipping for Charles' cousin to send amp to USA. To date, I have never seen a sales receipt from Charles yet. I asked Opera if they recall such a sale - unfortunately they don't. There are many expats in Beijing who purchase high end audio from Opera throughout years - one important businessman with great relationship with Chinese government didn't get registered with Opera significantly.

Here are some correspondence and dealings between Charles and Grant Fidelity:

Oct 20, 2009 - Phone call from Charles - "I urgently need a pair of TJ 211 for my coming audio society meeting because my other 211's failed. Please send it by UPS 3-day arrival."

Oct 28, 2009 - email from Charles - "thank you for your prompt shipping... I want to change my Cyber 211 's cap from Auri to V-cap, need to know the direction"

Oct 30, 2009 - email from Charles - "love the 211's... I need technical advice on installation of caps for my Cyber 211" (note the sequence here - tubes were used on the amp first, then the amp was modified)

Oct 30, 2009 - Grant Fidelity provided technical support by contacting Opera Consonance.

May 18, 2010 - Note this is about 7 months after the Oct 2009 tube purchase, email from Charles: "I don't see TJ mesh plate 211 on your website, why?" (note: Charles is referring the Carbon plate TJ 211 tubes as mesh plate here). Grant Fidelity responded: shipping damage for these large tubes are too costly for us and due to high factory cost, we had to discontinue them.

May 19th, 2010: email from Charles: "Hard to believe actually... their other tubes seem to ship well. The tube has been pulled from the manfs' web site." - Grant Fidelity responded with the TJ Full Music website link - TJ Full Music 211 tube was listed there all the time.

Charles further comments "an extra charge for a one year guarantee tells me something was up. At $500 a pair this should not be." - (my comments: - Does Charles shop at Best Buy at all? Extra charge for extended warranty is abnormal??? Plus which tube vendor is providing one year warranty for free??

Charles further said "Now for me it could have been the tube that caiused the trannie meltdown."

May 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "What I need to know is how much money does Consonance want for two power trannies and two output trannies. Then I can make an economic decision. It has already cost me money to repair the power caps that blew up previously.... The tube did not short or fail. It played in the other amp for 5 minutes with zero problem. Rachel, lets keep this simple.The price will determine my final reaction. Actually I feel there should be no charge for the trannies, just shipping. However I do not want to dispute anything at this time. So if the price is fair [ OEM or less] we will have zero issues.

May 27th, 2010: Grant Fidelity provided quote for transformers to Charles.

May 29th, 2010: email from Charles - "price (for transformers) are fair and appreciated. please proceed with order" but no payment received.

May 31, 2010: email from Charles - "I didn't get the same Cyber 211 amp as what was reviewed by enjoythemusic.com in 2005 - the factory was misleading" - Grant Fidelity explained Chinese manufacturers reserve the right to make changes on certain parts based on availability etc or design change without notice. This is common on many North American or European brands too. (note: the amp was bought in China not by Charles himself. We don't know how the transaction was done and what communication was carried out about what type of parts or version was purchased. Typically Chinese manufacturers use less expensive parts for products sold in China. Plus, it appears that Charles would like to file a claim with Opera after 3-4 years of his indirect purchase with Opera - strange and too late)

June 1st - June 4th: various phone calls from Charles - "I know lots of people in the industry in North America. I can make your business fail if I want... Opera should provide the transformers free of charge.." Grant Fidelity comment - "the transaction was done in China without our involvement. We cannot make decision on behalf of Opera but will let them know your demand"

June 5th: email from Charles: "So your telling me that since I did not buy it from you but from the company you represent I must must deal directly with them. Is that not why you came into the picture? - (my comment: Grant Fidelity didn't come into the picture - it's Charles after sending emails making probably unreasonable demand but receive no answer from Opera, came to us to ask for help and we offered to help. Grant Fidelity is not liable for anything Charles have about his indirect purchase in China at least 3 years ago bypassing then USA distributor).

June 5th, 2010: Grant Fidelity - discussed with Opera on the issue and suggested Opera and Charles split the cost of the two sets of transformers (note: it's not just for one monoblock, it's for both channel. Charles' communication with Grant Fidelity has led us to believe both channel were blown and melted.

June 19th, 2010: Opera agreed to provide all transformers at 1/2 price as an one time exception to help out with the situation. It's not their warranty but they will help out due to high repair cost claimed by Charles.

July 15th, 2010: Grant Fidelity advised Charles that all replacement transformers were sent out from China by FedEx to Charles. same day email from Charles: "The only creveat may be the TJ 211. It appears the tube was the culprit. Too much voltage and a short. I had about 150 hours on the tube . I will know the outcome when the repair is complete" (my comments: it appears very convenient to start attack TJ Full Music now when Opera has bent backwards to provide the transformers for next to nothing.)

July 23rd, 2010: email from Charles: "No way I will put the TJ back until I know the condition. It worked for less than a month with low hours on it. Not happy for $425/ pair. Secondly the cause for the trannie failures. I know I purchased them a while ago when the amp was down due to a power cap explosion." (note: Grant Fidelity received email from Charles one week after his purchase confirming the tubes work great.)

July 23rd, 2010: Grant Fidelity: our tube warranty is clearly stated on the website and you didn't raise disagreement at your time of purchase. It's 30 days from the purchase, not based on reported hours from customer. Our warranty is backed by manufacturer's policy and we cannot offer longer than manufacturer's warranty. Plus the sale was 9 months ago.

July 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "Please rethink your position as a Distributor NOT retailer. You have a lot to loose or gain." (note: threat starts here....)

July 26th, 2010: Grant Fidelity replies: we are TJ Full Music tubes as resellers and we don't sign up dealers for them in North America. TJ Full Music distribute themselves worldwide. We worked free of charge to help you out with the transformers (total 59 emails back and forth), our goodwill has to stop now since you don't appreciate our efforts at all. We also cannot refund your purchase after 9 months of time (original purchase Oct 20th, 2009).

(to be continued in next post)


  #11   Report Post  
Rachel @ Grant Fidelity Rachel @ Grant Fidelity is offline
Junior Member
 
Posts: 2
Default

continue from last post:

July 28th, 2010: email from Charles: "The TJ 211 tube fried my amp twice. Which has cost be serious money. Yes I do want the responsible party to make good on ONE NEW TUBE, thats all. I understand the warranty, I have owned tubed amps for over 30 years." - (my comments: the TJ tube fried your amp before and still worked until now?? Didn't you mentioned that your amp cap exploded before then you bought the TJ tubes?? I am really confused but I have zero interest in continue offer goodwill to help after a threat. And one good tube is all your want?? What about the next to free transformers you just got from Opera? Exactly what game is this?! )

July 28th, 2010: Grant Fidelity to Charles: please contact TJ Full Music directly to see if you can get a free tube after 9 months of purchase. I cannot do it to my suppliers and I cannot beg for you like I did with Opera. I cannot afford to lose credibility with my supplier to make unreasonable demands to them. A deal is a deal and I honor all my deal with my factories and my customers.

July 28th, 2010: email from Charles: "I will take it up with the manf (TJ).. If no success then AMEX will get involved. All i want is a new pair of tubes or one tube that matches the one that is OK. What I do not understand is your stance now. yes I was a bit strong in my email and rightly so as a customer....Really how much money would it cost TJ to provide a tube ? Not much to save their reputation. It is just good business sense. It is a small world today bad news travels quite quickly. Have you spoken to them and asked ? Maybe they might honor my request. It doesn't cost you a thing but an email. Sorry if I upset you but I am an emotional person [ Italian] very upset over this matter. It is not personal Rachel its business.
Please Rachel reconsider your stance."

- Grant Fidelity's stance: we honor every deal we make with our customers as per our sales and warranty policy. We don't take threat and don't take blackmail. We also do not beg for favors from our suppliers outside of the deal we made with the suppliers. If a supplier provide good products, we sell well for them. If we have issue with the product, we cut the loss and move on. In TJ's case, we had to cut the loss from shipping and move on. It has nothing to do with quality as none of our other customers reported any problem with these tubes.

July 28th: further email from Charles: "I thought the whole reason for Grant Fidelity was to ease the pain in dealing with Chinese products?" Comments: We distribute and resell Chinese products with our warranty and services right in North America. We don't beg for a customer who purchased from China then turn around in 3 to 4 years to accuse the factory for design flaws and show zero real appreciation but to move on to get another round of free replacement.

July 29th: email from Charles: "Please just send them (TJ) my email or emails and I will do the rest." Grant Fidelity politely said "No, we cannot beg the factory each time on behalf of the consumer as our warranty is 30 days from purchase, not 9 months from purchase".

Aug 10th: email from Charles "I sent TJ 3 emails but no reply"." I will not rest on this matter as I still feel, that the warranty is bogus. Only because of the damage caused and money spent on repair. That IS the only reason of my pursuit. No damage I go away unhappy but go away. Just makes no sense to me. How much could this cost them as oppossed to bad press." (note another threat)

Up to this point, Grant Fidelity has decided to no longer communicate with Charles on this matter. Grant Fidelity remain the same position that we honor every warranty no matter how much it cost, but we don't bend to blackmail or threat and we cannot operate business on personal favors. I did it once with Opera for Charles but the results are obviously not rewarding, so we will not do it again but to stick to our policy and service our own customers and warrant our own sales. For those who purchased from China directly to bypass your local distributor to save a few dollars, when you need service - it might be the time that you make up the price difference.

I think the above facts would be sufficient for anyone to make their own judgement.

For Charles, if you want a replacement tube free of charge, please take it up with the factory and I wish you all the good luck.

For other vendors who are reading this thread, wish you great luck in dealing with Charles Rollo. I wish I never sold anything to Charles from the beginning and will not sell anything to him from now on.

Grant Fidelity is proud of what we do and we have many satisfactory customers from our outstanding services in the past, right now and in the future of many years to come. Opinions are entitled from both sides - but facts are what stays at last.

Thanks for reading the long post. I will not make further comments on this matter as we have business to run and many other customers to service.


Rachel - Grant Fidelity
  #12   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Don Pearce[_3_] Don Pearce[_3_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,417
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:08:42 +0000, Rachel @ Grant Fidelity
wrote:


Some background information:

Where is Charles's Cyber 211 from? - according to Charles, it was
purchased from Opera in China by Charles' cousin (some important
businessman with great relationship with Chinese government. He was
treated like royalty at Opera - as per Charles) about 3-4 years ago. It
was not purchased in USA. Opera even paid for shipping for Charles'
cousin to send amp to USA. To date, I have never seen a sales receipt
from Charles yet. I asked Opera if they recall such a sale -
unfortunately they don't. There are many expats in Beijing who purchase
high end audio from Opera throughout years - one important businessman
with great relationship with Chinese government didn't get registered
with Opera significantly.

Here are some correspondence and dealings between Charles and Grant
Fidelity:

Oct 20, 2009 - Phone call from Charles - "I urgently need a pair of TJ
211 for my coming audio society meeting because my other 211's failed.
Please send it by UPS 3-day arrival."

Oct 28, 2009 - email from Charles - "thank you for your prompt
shipping... I want to change my Cyber 211 's cap from Auri to V-cap,
need to know the direction"

Oct 30, 2009 - email from Charles - "love the 211's... I need technical
advice on installation of caps for my Cyber 211" (note the sequence here
- tubes were used on the amp first, then the amp was modified)

Oct 30, 2009 - Grant Fidelity provided technical support by contacting
Opera Consonance.

May 18, 2010 - Note this is about 7 months after the Oct 2009 tube
purchase, email from Charles: "I don't see TJ mesh plate 211 on your
website, why?" (note: Charles is referring the Carbon plate TJ 211 tubes
as mesh plate here). Grant Fidelity responded: shipping damage for these
large tubes are too costly for us and due to high factory cost, we had
to discontinue them.

May 19th, 2010: email from Charles: "Hard to believe actually... their
other tubes seem to ship well. The tube has been pulled from the manfs'
web site." - Grant Fidelity responded with the TJ Full Music website
link - TJ Full Music 211 tube was listed there all the time.

Charles further comments "an extra charge for a one year guarantee tells
me something was up. At $500 a pair this should not be." - (my comments:
- Does Charles shop at Best Buy at all? Extra charge for extended
warranty is abnormal??? Plus which tube vendor is providing one year
warranty for free??

Charles further said "Now for me it could have been the tube that
caiused the trannie meltdown."

May 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "What I need to know is how much
money does Consonance want for two power trannies and two output
trannies. Then I can make an economic decision. It has already cost me
money to repair the power caps that blew up previously.... The tube did
not short or fail. It played in the other amp for 5 minutes with zero
problem. Rachel, lets keep this simple.The price will determine my final
reaction. Actually I feel there should be no charge for the trannies,
just shipping. However I do not want to dispute anything at this time.
So if the price is fair [ OEM or less] we will have zero issues.

May 27th, 2010: Grant Fidelity provided quote for transformers to
Charles.

May 29th, 2010: email from Charles - "price (for transformers) are fair
and appreciated. please proceed with order" but no payment received.

May 31, 2010: email from Charles - "I didn't get the same Cyber 211 amp
as what was reviewed by enjoythemusic.com in 2005 - the factory was
misleading" - Grant Fidelity explained Chinese manufacturers reserve the
right to make changes on certain parts based on availability etc or
design change without notice. This is common on many North American or
European brands too. (note: the amp was bought in China not by Charles
himself. We don't know how the transaction was done and what
communication was carried out about what type of parts or version was
purchased. Typically Chinese manufacturers use less expensive parts for
products sold in China. Plus, it appears that Charles would like to file
a claim with Opera after 3-4 years of his indirect purchase with Opera -
strange and too late)

June 1st - June 4th: various phone calls from Charles - "I know lots of
people in the industry in North America. I can make your business fail
if I want... Opera should provide the transformers free of charge.."
Grant Fidelity comment - "the transaction was done in China without our
involvement. We cannot make decision on behalf of Opera but will let
them know your demand"

June 5th: email from Charles: "So your telling me that since I did not
buy it from you but from the company you represent I must must deal
directly with them. Is that not why you came into the picture? - (my
comment: Grant Fidelity didn't come into the picture - it's Charles
after sending emails making probably unreasonable demand but receive no
answer from Opera, came to us to ask for help and we offered to help.
Grant Fidelity is not liable for anything Charles have about his
indirect purchase in China at least 3 years ago bypassing then USA
distributor).

June 5th, 2010: Grant Fidelity - discussed with Opera on the issue and
suggested Opera and Charles split the cost of the two sets of
transformers (note: it's not just for one monoblock, it's for both
channel. Charles' communication with Grant Fidelity has led us to
believe both channel were blown and melted.

June 19th, 2010: Opera agreed to provide all transformers at 1/2 price
as an one time exception to help out with the situation. It's not their
warranty but they will help out due to high repair cost claimed by
Charles.

July 15th, 2010: Grant Fidelity advised Charles that all replacement
transformers were sent out from China by FedEx to Charles. same day
email from Charles: "The only creveat may be the TJ 211. It appears the
tube was the culprit. Too much voltage and a short. I had about 150
hours on the tube . I will know the outcome when the repair is complete"
(my comments: it appears very convenient to start attack TJ Full Music
now when Opera has bent backwards to provide the transformers for next
to nothing.)

July 23rd, 2010: email from Charles: "No way I will put the TJ back
until I know the condition. It worked for less than a month with low
hours on it. Not happy for $425/ pair. Secondly the cause for the
trannie failures. I know I purchased them a while ago when the amp was
down due to a power cap explosion." (note: Grant Fidelity received email
from Charles one week after his purchase confirming the tubes work
great.)

July 23rd, 2010: Grant Fidelity: our tube warranty is clearly stated on
the website and you didn't raise disagreement at your time of purchase.
It's 30 days from the purchase, not based on reported hours from
customer. Our warranty is backed by manufacturer's policy and we cannot
offer longer than manufacturer's warranty. Plus the sale was 9 months
ago.

July 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "Please rethink your position as a
Distributor NOT retailer. You have a lot to loose or gain." (note:
threat starts here....)

July 26th, 2010: Grant Fidelity replies: we are TJ Full Music tubes as
resellers and we don't sign up dealers for them in North America. TJ
Full Music distribute themselves worldwide. We worked free of charge to
help you out with the transformers (total 59 emails back and forth), our
goodwill has to stop now since you don't appreciate our efforts at all.
We also cannot refund your purchase after 9 months of time (original
purchase Oct 20th, 2009).


He's going to sue your arses and win handsomely.

d
  #13   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 18, 10:00*am, NX211 wrote:
On Aug 17, 7:38*pm, Patrick Turner wrote:





On Aug 18, 8:17*am, NX211 wrote:


On Aug 16, 10:37*am, charles rollo charles.rollo.


wrote:
Recently my amps trannies were melted when the 211 failed. With less
than 150 hours on the tube but past the 30 day warrantee.
I bought the tubes in Oct. 2009 from Grant Fidelity. however never
used them until well after the 30 day time frame. Which Grant was aware
of.
One tube shorted and took out the output and high voltage trannies.
Costing me $1500 to repair.
Neither Grant Fidelity nor Full Music will care after the 30 days
expires. For $500 one would think that the Manf. or north American
distributor would make ammends because of the damage done. Something
fishy going on as the distributor.
No no and no is the answer from them. Buyer beware. Stay away.


charles


--
charles rollo


I had a new KT90 arc in the base from the plate to the filament and
literally melt down with only 50 hrs on the tube. How do you explain
that to the guy you bought the tubes from. *Not too cool.


I bought about 20 KT90s from New Sensor some years ago and fitted 8 to
a 8585 stereo amp which has B+ at 480Vdc.
Not one has failed early. *But KT90 made in the old EI yugoslavia
factory were very prone to malfunction and failure if they become red
hot due to a speake cable short.


Also had a new KT120 with about 75 hrs on it fail from a bad
connection on one of the filament pins. Then again, bought some JJ
KT77's with something floating around in one of them and it arced
internally with a big flash when installed. *I knew I should have
immediately sent it back before installing it but I didn't - and I got
burned. * These aren't operational problems with the amp but poor
quality control from tube manufactures.


New Sensor test most tubes during the grading and matching process and
they don't rely on the makers in Russia to do it. Maybe New Sensor
discard 5% of the tubes sent to them from the factory. The number of
failures is not publicised for obvious reasons lest it create the
opinion that tubes are all dodgy and you are lucky to get any which
work properly.


But Quality Control during tube production ALWAYS was a problem in
itself because HUMANS are much involved doing repetitious work. And
its mainly womens work. Anyway, if you worked in a tube factory you'd
know just how easy it is for **** to happen.


I have had bad soldering of wires to tube bas pins and its easily
fixed by re-soldering. In all my amps there is active protection and
the amp just cannot remain turned on if any single output tube
malfunctions in a manner which leads to excessive cathode currents.


Also bought some cheap Chinese 6L6GC's with hundreds of hrs on them
now and the perform flawlessly. *You don't necessarily get what you
pay for when it comes to vacuum tubes.- Hide quoted text -


If you get 95% of what you pay for then this is good because if all
tube production was being done in the USA or Oz or UK like it once
used to be done then you'd be paying +20dB more for the tubes because
of the much higher cost of labour and compliance with workplace safety
regulations.


I cannot understand someone buying an expensive KT120 when 2 6L6GC can
give similar power. But in Guitar amp land there are those who will
buy anything offered.


Patrick Turner


- Show quoted text -


Ah - KT120's are neat tubes. *They'll work in most amps that use
KT88's, etc. and you'll run out of power supply way before you run out
of tube. *$100.00 and they'll last for years if you get a good pair.
Put 600 or 700 volts on them and *they'll rock your neighborhood.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Indeed you can get a huge amount of AB1 power from KT120 and no doubt
they might be popular with guitar amp and PA people.

They may be cherished for where a high amount of class A power is
wanted rather than a huge unecessary amount of class AB power.
Audiophiles have somewhat more preferance for a very clean first 10
watts from a class A amp and for this you rarely need Ea more than
400V. I have used KT90 and KT88 in Quad-II amps and with much revision
of the PSU and amp circuits so that the sound is better than the
original amps with KT66, and even with Ia less than used in the KT66.

The higher the Ia can be, the lower the Ea must be to keep the idle
Pda within safe working limits for long tube life.
With KT66 or 6L6 in amps like Quad-II, the Pda is about 22W per tube
at idle. For KT88, idle Pda could be safely 35W and for KT120 about
40W I guess. But one would not want to set up KT120 in a Quad-II amp
so idle Pda was 40W or else the PT would overheat from internal
winding losses and the radiated heat from the tubes. So in fact with
KT120, one would run them with less idle Pda than KT66, about 20W
would be OK and probably you'd get better sound than with KT66- if you
modify the rest of the amp circuit and PSU circuit to give less THD
and lower PSU noise.

My latest modded Quad-II amps have plain old Sovtek KT88 and a pair of
Polam EF80 input tubes and with the amps set for 8 ohms, there is 32W
available at 0.5dB above clipping with a sine wave input. There is
cathode biasing with Dynamic BIas Stabilisation. Instant output power
at clipping without the B+ rail sagging due to class AB higher Ia draw
is about 34W. Using KT90 or KT120 would not give any PO increase of
THD reduction. KT88 or 6550 are sufficiently capable of giving as
great an anode voltage swing as is possible and KT120 will not
increase it. Using fixed bias would increase possible class AB output
power but I have enough and I like having no adjustments to make.

KT120 are supposed to have heater currents betaeen 1.7 and 1.95A which
is close to KT88/6550. Most amps able to take KT66 or EL34 can take
the higher heater current draw because usually there is some over
design of heater windings.

But this needs to be checked out. I have had no trouble using KT88 in
Quad-II amps but then in most I have deleted the damn hot running GZ32
and used slightly less Ia than originally specified so the amps I
modify run cooler so the slight extra heating from warmer heater
windings is accomodated.

There would be many who would say Sovtek KT88 or KT120EH might sound
terrible compared to a pair of original NOS KT66, but I have not heard
any evidence to support the nostalgic opinion.

Presumably, KT120 could be used in Dynaco ST70 and such like, but of
course the bias setting has to be re-set so as to not overload the B+
supply.

When EL34 or 6CA7 are used in cathode biased amps meant for KT66, 6L6,
KT88 or 6550, the bias current is lower and perhaps acceptable but in
amps designed for EL34/6CA7 the use of KT66 etc will cause higher Ia
and bias MUST be adjusted somehow.

I've not yet seen a live KT120, and so I don't know exactly how they
bias up in a circuit designed for EL34 or 6L6/KT66 etc.

Using KT90, KT88, 6550, or KT120 in amps meant for tubes which have
lower saturation currents such as KT66 and 6L6 could damage a fragile
OPT if there is bias failure. So one shoud always fit active
protection measures to stop precious old OPTs from being damaged when
hotting up the amp with tubes more powerful than original.

Patrick Turner.
  #14   Report Post  
charles rollo charles rollo is offline
Junior Member
 
Location: NYC
Posts: 5
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel @ Grant Fidelity View Post
Some background information:

Where is Charles's Cyber 211 from? - according to Charles, it was purchased from Opera in China by Charles' cousin (some important businessman with great relationship with Chinese government. He was treated like royalty at Opera - as per Charles) about 3-4 years ago. It was not purchased in USA. Opera even paid for shipping for Charles' cousin to send amp to USA. To date, I have never seen a sales receipt from Charles yet. I asked Opera if they recall such a sale - unfortunately they don't. There are many expats in Beijing who purchase high end audio from Opera throughout years - one important businessman with great relationship with Chinese government didn't get registered with Opera significantly.

Here are some correspondence and dealings between Charles and Grant Fidelity:

Oct 20, 2009 - Phone call from Charles - "I urgently need a pair of TJ 211 for my coming audio society meeting because my other 211's failed. Please send it by UPS 3-day arrival."

Oct 28, 2009 - email from Charles - "thank you for your prompt shipping... I want to change my Cyber 211 's cap from Auri to V-cap, need to know the direction"

Oct 30, 2009 - email from Charles - "love the 211's... I need technical advice on installation of caps for my Cyber 211" (note the sequence here - tubes were used on the amp first, then the amp was modified)

Oct 30, 2009 - Grant Fidelity provided technical support by contacting Opera Consonance.

May 18, 2010 - Note this is about 7 months after the Oct 2009 tube purchase, email from Charles: "I don't see TJ mesh plate 211 on your website, why?" (note: Charles is referring the Carbon plate TJ 211 tubes as mesh plate here). Grant Fidelity responded: shipping damage for these large tubes are too costly for us and due to high factory cost, we had to discontinue them.

May 19th, 2010: email from Charles: "Hard to believe actually... their other tubes seem to ship well. The tube has been pulled from the manfs' web site." - Grant Fidelity responded with the TJ Full Music website link - TJ Full Music 211 tube was listed there all the time.

Charles further comments "an extra charge for a one year guarantee tells me something was up. At $500 a pair this should not be." - (my comments: - Does Charles shop at Best Buy at all? Extra charge for extended warranty is abnormal??? Plus which tube vendor is providing one year warranty for free??

Charles further said "Now for me it could have been the tube that caiused the trannie meltdown."

May 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "What I need to know is how much money does Consonance want for two power trannies and two output trannies. Then I can make an economic decision. It has already cost me money to repair the power caps that blew up previously.... The tube did not short or fail. It played in the other amp for 5 minutes with zero problem. Rachel, lets keep this simple.The price will determine my final reaction. Actually I feel there should be no charge for the trannies, just shipping. However I do not want to dispute anything at this time. So if the price is fair [ OEM or less] we will have zero issues.

May 27th, 2010: Grant Fidelity provided quote for transformers to Charles.

May 29th, 2010: email from Charles - "price (for transformers) are fair and appreciated. please proceed with order" but no payment received.

May 31, 2010: email from Charles - "I didn't get the same Cyber 211 amp as what was reviewed by enjoythemusic.com in 2005 - the factory was misleading" - Grant Fidelity explained Chinese manufacturers reserve the right to make changes on certain parts based on availability etc or design change without notice. This is common on many North American or European brands too. (note: the amp was bought in China not by Charles himself. We don't know how the transaction was done and what communication was carried out about what type of parts or version was purchased. Typically Chinese manufacturers use less expensive parts for products sold in China. Plus, it appears that Charles would like to file a claim with Opera after 3-4 years of his indirect purchase with Opera - strange and too late)

June 1st - June 4th: various phone calls from Charles - "I know lots of people in the industry in North America. I can make your business fail if I want... Opera should provide the transformers free of charge.." Grant Fidelity comment - "the transaction was done in China without our involvement. We cannot make decision on behalf of Opera but will let them know your demand"

June 5th: email from Charles: "So your telling me that since I did not buy it from you but from the company you represent I must must deal directly with them. Is that not why you came into the picture? - (my comment: Grant Fidelity didn't come into the picture - it's Charles after sending emails making probably unreasonable demand but receive no answer from Opera, came to us to ask for help and we offered to help. Grant Fidelity is not liable for anything Charles have about his indirect purchase in China at least 3 years ago bypassing then USA distributor).

June 5th, 2010: Grant Fidelity - discussed with Opera on the issue and suggested Opera and Charles split the cost of the two sets of transformers (note: it's not just for one monoblock, it's for both channel. Charles' communication with Grant Fidelity has led us to believe both channel were blown and melted.

June 19th, 2010: Opera agreed to provide all transformers at 1/2 price as an one time exception to help out with the situation. It's not their warranty but they will help out due to high repair cost claimed by Charles.

July 15th, 2010: Grant Fidelity advised Charles that all replacement transformers were sent out from China by FedEx to Charles. same day email from Charles: "The only creveat may be the TJ 211. It appears the tube was the culprit. Too much voltage and a short. I had about 150 hours on the tube . I will know the outcome when the repair is complete" (my comments: it appears very convenient to start attack TJ Full Music now when Opera has bent backwards to provide the transformers for next to nothing.)

July 23rd, 2010: email from Charles: "No way I will put the TJ back until I know the condition. It worked for less than a month with low hours on it. Not happy for $425/ pair. Secondly the cause for the trannie failures. I know I purchased them a while ago when the amp was down due to a power cap explosion." (note: Grant Fidelity received email from Charles one week after his purchase confirming the tubes work great.)

July 23rd, 2010: Grant Fidelity: our tube warranty is clearly stated on the website and you didn't raise disagreement at your time of purchase. It's 30 days from the purchase, not based on reported hours from customer. Our warranty is backed by manufacturer's policy and we cannot offer longer than manufacturer's warranty. Plus the sale was 9 months ago.

July 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "Please rethink your position as a Distributor NOT retailer. You have a lot to loose or gain." (note: threat starts here....)

July 26th, 2010: Grant Fidelity replies: we are TJ Full Music tubes as resellers and we don't sign up dealers for them in North America. TJ Full Music distribute themselves worldwide. We worked free of charge to help you out with the transformers (total 59 emails back and forth), our goodwill has to stop now since you don't appreciate our efforts at all. We also cannot refund your purchase after 9 months of time (original purchase Oct 20th, 2009).

(to be continued in next post)
At least get your facts straight. The amp was purchased by my cousin at the Opera showroom in Bejing. Period. opera did NOT pay for shipping. My cousins shipping company decided not to charge him. The amp was purchased for $1900 US in cash. Are you calling me a liar now ?
The reason I got the help from Opera is because they area stand up company. Grant Fidelitys help was wonderfull as I posted on numerous forums.
The tubes another issue. The tube no matter how long it sat on the shelf before use should be a good tube. Yes, no ? The fact that it shorted is the issue for me NOT the time frame of use.
Anyway this is now a dealer dispute with Amex. I will abide by their decision. BTW Full Muusic does not respond to my emails after they directed me to contact Grant fidelity. The ring around continues. Buyer beware.
Threats no way just pointing out the obvious. Its called a small world, word gets around .You be the judge. Never again. OH BTW Vintage Tube Service offers a full money back guarantee on all NOS tubes sold. If you are resellers than why do you state "Distributor " on your web page ? I would think that any Manf. or distributor would want to help a customer who had their amp burn up from using said product. Guess I'm wrong. This is an unusual circumstance because of the time frame issue.
The amps were not modded therewas exact part swaps with better resistors and caps. Kiwame, takman resistors and V-caps. All the same values were used. No circuit mods at all. Just parts replacement. Geez.

charles

Last edited by charles rollo : August 19th 10 at 05:17 PM
  #15   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Fred[_12_] Fred[_12_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 24
Default Full Music 211 tube failure


"charles rollo" wrote in message ...

Rachel @ Grant Fidelity;915784 Wrote:
Some background information:

Where is Charles's Cyber 211 from? - according to Charles, it was
purchased from Opera in China by Charles' cousin (some important
businessman with great relationship with Chinese government. He was
treated like royalty at Opera - as per Charles) about 3-4 years ago. It
was not purchased in USA. Opera even paid for shipping for Charles'
cousin to send amp to USA. To date, I have never seen a sales receipt
from Charles yet. I asked Opera if they recall such a sale -
unfortunately they don't. There are many expats in Beijing who purchase
high end audio from Opera throughout years - one important businessman
with great relationship with Chinese government didn't get registered
with Opera significantly.

Here are some correspondence and dealings between Charles and Grant
Fidelity:

Oct 20, 2009 - Phone call from Charles - "I urgently need a pair of TJ
211 for my coming audio society meeting because my other 211's failed.
Please send it by UPS 3-day arrival."

Oct 28, 2009 - email from Charles - "thank you for your prompt
shipping... I want to change my Cyber 211 's cap from Auri to V-cap,
need to know the direction"

Oct 30, 2009 - email from Charles - "love the 211's... I need technical
advice on installation of caps for my Cyber 211" (note the sequence here
- tubes were used on the amp first, then the amp was modified)

Oct 30, 2009 - Grant Fidelity provided technical support by contacting
Opera Consonance.

May 18, 2010 - Note this is about 7 months after the Oct 2009 tube
purchase, email from Charles: "I don't see TJ mesh plate 211 on your
website, why?" (note: Charles is referring the Carbon plate TJ 211 tubes
as mesh plate here). Grant Fidelity responded: shipping damage for these
large tubes are too costly for us and due to high factory cost, we had
to discontinue them.

May 19th, 2010: email from Charles: "Hard to believe actually... their
other tubes seem to ship well. The tube has been pulled from the manfs'
web site." - Grant Fidelity responded with the TJ Full Music website
link - TJ Full Music 211 tube was listed there all the time.

Charles further comments "an extra charge for a one year guarantee tells
me something was up. At $500 a pair this should not be." - (my comments:
- Does Charles shop at Best Buy at all? Extra charge for extended
warranty is abnormal??? Plus which tube vendor is providing one year
warranty for free??

Charles further said "Now for me it could have been the tube that
caiused the trannie meltdown."

May 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "What I need to know is how much
money does Consonance want for two power trannies and two output
trannies. Then I can make an economic decision. It has already cost me
money to repair the power caps that blew up previously.... The tube did
not short or fail. It played in the other amp for 5 minutes with zero
problem. Rachel, lets keep this simple.The price will determine my final
reaction. Actually I feel there should be no charge for the trannies,
just shipping. However I do not want to dispute anything at this time.
So if the price is fair [ OEM or less] we will have zero issues.

May 27th, 2010: Grant Fidelity provided quote for transformers to
Charles.

May 29th, 2010: email from Charles - "price (for transformers) are fair
and appreciated. please proceed with order" but no payment received.

May 31, 2010: email from Charles - "I didn't get the same Cyber 211 amp
as what was reviewed by enjoythemusic.com in 2005 - the factory was
misleading" - Grant Fidelity explained Chinese manufacturers reserve the
right to make changes on certain parts based on availability etc or
design change without notice. This is common on many North American or
European brands too. (note: the amp was bought in China not by Charles
himself. We don't know how the transaction was done and what
communication was carried out about what type of parts or version was
purchased. Typically Chinese manufacturers use less expensive parts for
products sold in China. Plus, it appears that Charles would like to file
a claim with Opera after 3-4 years of his indirect purchase with Opera -
strange and too late)

June 1st - June 4th: various phone calls from Charles - "I know lots of
people in the industry in North America. I can make your business fail
if I want... Opera should provide the transformers free of charge.."
Grant Fidelity comment - "the transaction was done in China without our
involvement. We cannot make decision on behalf of Opera but will let
them know your demand"

June 5th: email from Charles: "So your telling me that since I did not
buy it from you but from the company you represent I must must deal
directly with them. Is that not why you came into the picture? - (my
comment: Grant Fidelity didn't come into the picture - it's Charles
after sending emails making probably unreasonable demand but receive no
answer from Opera, came to us to ask for help and we offered to help.
Grant Fidelity is not liable for anything Charles have about his
indirect purchase in China at least 3 years ago bypassing then USA
distributor).

June 5th, 2010: Grant Fidelity - discussed with Opera on the issue and
suggested Opera and Charles split the cost of the two sets of
transformers (note: it's not just for one monoblock, it's for both
channel. Charles' communication with Grant Fidelity has led us to
believe both channel were blown and melted.

June 19th, 2010: Opera agreed to provide all transformers at 1/2 price
as an one time exception to help out with the situation. It's not their
warranty but they will help out due to high repair cost claimed by
Charles.

July 15th, 2010: Grant Fidelity advised Charles that all replacement
transformers were sent out from China by FedEx to Charles. same day
email from Charles: "The only creveat may be the TJ 211. It appears the
tube was the culprit. Too much voltage and a short. I had about 150
hours on the tube . I will know the outcome when the repair is complete"
(my comments: it appears very convenient to start attack TJ Full Music
now when Opera has bent backwards to provide the transformers for next
to nothing.)

July 23rd, 2010: email from Charles: "No way I will put the TJ back
until I know the condition. It worked for less than a month with low
hours on it. Not happy for $425/ pair. Secondly the cause for the
trannie failures. I know I purchased them a while ago when the amp was
down due to a power cap explosion." (note: Grant Fidelity received email
from Charles one week after his purchase confirming the tubes work
great.)

July 23rd, 2010: Grant Fidelity: our tube warranty is clearly stated on
the website and you didn't raise disagreement at your time of purchase.
It's 30 days from the purchase, not based on reported hours from
customer. Our warranty is backed by manufacturer's policy and we cannot
offer longer than manufacturer's warranty. Plus the sale was 9 months
ago.

July 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "Please rethink your position as a
Distributor NOT retailer. You have a lot to loose or gain." (note:
threat starts here....)

July 26th, 2010: Grant Fidelity replies: we are TJ Full Music tubes as
resellers and we don't sign up dealers for them in North America. TJ
Full Music distribute themselves worldwide. We worked free of charge to
help you out with the transformers (total 59 emails back and forth), our
goodwill has to stop now since you don't appreciate our efforts at all.
We also cannot refund your purchase after 9 months of time (original
purchase Oct 20th, 2009).

(to be continued in next post)


At least get your facts straight. The amp was purchased by my cousin
at the Opera showroom in Bejing. Period. opera did NOT pay for shipping.
My cousins shipping company decided not to charge him. The amp was
purchased for $1900 US in cash. Are you calling me a liar now ?
The reason I got the help from Opera is because they area stand up
company. Grant Fidelitys help was wonderfull as I posted on numerous
forums.
The tubes another issue. The tube no matter how long it sat on the
shelf before use should be a good tube. Yes, no ? The fact that it
shorted is the issue for me NOT the time frame of use.
Anyway this is now a dealer dispute with Amex. I will abide by their
decision. BTW Full Muusic does not respond to my emails after they
directed me to contact Grant fidelity. The ring around continues. Buyer
beware.
Threats no way just pointing out the obvious. Its called a small
world, word gets around .You be the judge. Never again. OH BTW Vintage
Tube Service offers a full money back guarantee on all NOS tubes sold.
If you are resellers than why do you state "Distributor " on your web
page ? I would think that any Manf. or distributor would want to help a
customer who had their amp burn up from using said product. Guess I'm
wrong. This is an unusual circumstance because of the time frame issue.

The amps were not modded therewas exact part swaps with better
resistors and caps. Kiwame, takman resistors and V-caps. All the same
values were used. No circuit mods at all. Just parts replacement. Geez.

charles




--
charles rollo



I've been in the audio business for around 40 years, Charles. I deal with
customers like you by showing them the door. You took some risks to save
money and when that backfired, you tried to make it someone else's problem.

If I was Grant and you hadn't bought your amp from us, about all the help I'd
have given you would have been to give you Opera's phone number in China.
That's if I didn't hang up on you first. Grant owes you exactly nothing there.

As far as the tubes go, you accepted the terms of their warranty when you
bought the tubes, you refused to pay for an extended warranty, and now you
want to make that their fault. Not happening, Charles. You got exactly what
you paid for.

Do you know why Chinese power tubes and tube amps have such a poor
reputation? Because they earned it. But you thought you were special
so none of that applied to you. You thought wrong.

You got stung because you asked for it, Charles. Time to grow up and
stop asking others to cover your bad bets.

Fred








  #16   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 20, 10:43*am, "Fred" wrote:
"charles rollo" wrote in . ..

Rachel @ Grant Fidelity;915784 Wrote:
Some background information:


Where is Charles's Cyber 211 from? - according to Charles, it was
purchased from Opera in China by Charles' cousin (some important
businessman with great relationship with Chinese government. He was
treated like royalty at Opera - as per Charles) about 3-4 years ago. It
was not purchased in USA. Opera even paid for shipping for Charles'
cousin to send amp to USA. To date, I have never seen a sales receipt
from Charles yet. I asked Opera if they recall such a sale -
unfortunately they don't. There are many expats in Beijing who purchase
high end audio from Opera throughout years - one important businessman
with great relationship with Chinese government didn't get registered
with Opera significantly.


Here are some correspondence and dealings between Charles and Grant
Fidelity:


Oct 20, 2009 - Phone call from Charles - "I urgently need a pair of TJ
211 for my coming audio society meeting because my other 211's failed.
Please send it by UPS 3-day arrival."


Oct 28, 2009 - email from Charles - "thank you for your prompt
shipping... I want to change my Cyber 211 's cap from Auri to V-cap,
need to know the direction"


Oct 30, 2009 - email from Charles - "love the 211's... I need technical
advice on installation of caps for my Cyber 211" (note the sequence here
- tubes were used on the amp first, then the amp was modified)


Oct 30, 2009 - Grant Fidelity provided technical support by contacting
Opera Consonance.


May 18, 2010 - Note this is about 7 months after the Oct 2009 tube
purchase, email from Charles: "I don't see TJ mesh plate 211 on your
website, why?" (note: Charles is referring the Carbon plate TJ 211 tubes
as mesh plate here). Grant Fidelity responded: shipping damage for these
large tubes are too costly for us and due to high factory cost, we had
to discontinue them.


May 19th, 2010: email from Charles: "Hard to believe actually... their
other tubes seem to ship well. The tube has been pulled from the manfs'
web site." - Grant Fidelity responded with the TJ Full Music website
link - TJ Full Music 211 tube was listed there all the time.


Charles further comments "an extra charge for a one year guarantee tells
me something was up. At $500 a pair this should not be." - (my comments:
- Does Charles shop at Best Buy at all? Extra charge for extended
warranty is abnormal??? Plus which tube vendor is providing one year
warranty for free??


Charles further said "Now for me it could have been the tube that
caiused the trannie meltdown."


May 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "What I need to know is how much
money does Consonance *want for two power trannies and two output
trannies. Then I can make an economic decision. *It has already cost me
money to repair the power caps that blew up previously.... The tube did
not short or fail. It played in the other amp for 5 minutes with zero
problem. Rachel, lets keep this simple.The price will determine my final
reaction. Actually I feel there should be no charge for the trannies,
just shipping. However I do not want to dispute anything at this time.
So if the price is fair [ OEM or less] we will have zero issues.


May 27th, 2010: Grant Fidelity provided quote for transformers to
Charles.


May 29th, 2010: email from Charles - "price (for transformers) are fair
and appreciated. please proceed with order" but no payment received.


May 31, 2010: email from Charles - "I didn't get the same Cyber 211 amp
as what was reviewed by enjoythemusic.com in 2005 - the factory was
misleading" - Grant Fidelity explained Chinese manufacturers reserve the
right to make changes on certain parts based on availability etc or
design change without notice. This is common on many North American or
European brands too. (note: the amp was bought in China not by Charles
himself. We don't know how the transaction was done and what
communication was carried out about what type of parts or version was
purchased. Typically Chinese manufacturers use less expensive parts for
products sold in China. Plus, it appears that Charles would like to file
a claim with Opera after 3-4 years of his indirect purchase with Opera -
strange and too late)


June 1st - June 4th: various phone calls from Charles - "I know lots of
people in the industry in North America. I can make your business fail
if I want... Opera should provide the transformers free of charge.."
Grant Fidelity comment - "the transaction was done in China without our
involvement. We cannot make decision on behalf of Opera but will let
them know your demand"


June 5th: email from Charles: "So your telling me that since I did not
buy it from you but from the company you represent I must must deal
directly with them. Is that not why you came into the picture? - (my
comment: Grant Fidelity didn't come into the picture - it's Charles
after sending emails making probably unreasonable demand but receive no
answer from Opera, came to us to ask for help and we offered to help.
Grant Fidelity is not liable for anything Charles have about his
indirect purchase in China at least 3 years ago bypassing then USA
distributor).


June 5th, 2010: Grant Fidelity - discussed with Opera on the issue and
suggested Opera and Charles split the cost of the two sets of
transformers (note: it's not just for one monoblock, it's for both
channel. Charles' communication with Grant Fidelity has led us to
believe both channel were blown and melted.


June 19th, 2010: Opera agreed to provide all transformers at 1/2 price
as an one time exception to help out with the situation. It's not their
warranty but they will help out due to high repair cost claimed by
Charles.


July 15th, 2010: Grant Fidelity advised Charles that all replacement
transformers were sent out from China by FedEx to Charles. same day
email from Charles: "The only creveat may be the TJ 211. It appears the
tube was the culprit. Too *much voltage and a short. I had about 150
hours on the tube . I will know the outcome when the repair is complete"
(my comments: it appears very convenient to start attack TJ Full Music
now when Opera has bent backwards to provide the transformers for next
to nothing.)


July 23rd, 2010: email from Charles: "No way I will put the TJ back
until I know the condition. It worked for less than a month with low
hours on it. *Not happy for $425/ pair. Secondly the cause for the
trannie failures. I know I purchased them a while ago when the amp was
down due to a power cap explosion." (note: Grant Fidelity received email
from Charles one week after his purchase confirming the tubes work
great.)


July 23rd, 2010: Grant Fidelity: our tube warranty is clearly stated on
the website and you didn't raise disagreement at your time of purchase..
It's 30 days from the purchase, not based on reported hours from
customer. Our warranty is backed by manufacturer's policy and we cannot
offer longer than manufacturer's warranty. Plus the sale was 9 months
ago.


July 26th, 2010: email from Charles: "Please rethink your position as a
Distributor NOT retailer. You have a lot to loose or gain." (note:
threat starts here....)


July 26th, 2010: Grant Fidelity replies: we are TJ Full Music tubes as
resellers and we don't sign up dealers for them in North America. TJ
Full Music distribute themselves worldwide. We worked free of charge to
help you out with the transformers (total 59 emails back and forth), our
goodwill has to stop now since you don't appreciate our efforts at all..
We also cannot refund your purchase after 9 months of time (original
purchase Oct 20th, 2009).


(to be continued in next post)


At least get your facts straight. The amp was purchased by my cousin
at the Opera showroom in Bejing. Period. opera did NOT pay for shipping..
My cousins shipping company decided not to charge him. The amp was
purchased for $1900 US in cash. Are you calling me a liar now ?
The reason I got the help from Opera is because they area stand up
company. Grant Fidelitys help was wonderfull as I posted on numerous
forums.
The tubes another issue. The tube no matter how long it sat on the
shelf before use should be a good tube. Yes, no ? The fact that it
shorted is the issue for me NOT the time frame of use.
Anyway this is now a dealer dispute with Amex. I will abide by their
decision. BTW Full Muusic does not respond to my emails after they
directed me to contact Grant fidelity. The ring around continues. Buyer
beware.
Threats no way just pointing out the obvious. Its called *a small
world, word gets around .You be the judge. Never again. OH BTW Vintage
Tube Service offers a full money back guarantee on all NOS tubes sold.
If you are resellers than why do you state "Distributor " on your web
page ? I would think that any Manf. or distributor would want to help a
customer who had their amp burn up from using said product. Guess I'm
wrong. This is an unusual circumstance because of the time frame issue.


The amps were not modded therewas exact part swaps with better
resistors and caps. Kiwame, takman resistors and V-caps. All the same
values were used. No circuit mods at all. Just parts replacement. Geez.


charles


--
charles rollo


I've been in the audio business for around 40 years, Charles. *I deal with
customers like you by showing them the door. *You took some risks to save
money and when that backfired, you tried to make it someone else's problem.

If I was Grant and you hadn't bought your amp from us, about all the help I'd
have given you would have been to give you Opera's phone number in China.
That's if I didn't hang up on you first. *Grant owes you exactly nothing there.

As far as the tubes go, you accepted the terms of their warranty when you
bought the tubes, you refused to pay for an extended warranty, and now you
want to make that their fault. *Not happening, Charles. *You got exactly what
you paid for.

Do you know why Chinese power tubes and tube amps have such a poor
reputation? *Because they earned it. *But you thought you were special
so none of that applied to you. *You thought wrong.

You got stung because you asked for it, Charles. *Time to grow up and
stop asking others to cover your bad bets.

Fred


I trade with the general public by occasionally selling custom made
amplifiers, re-designing and re-engineering existing amplifiers, and
repairing other amplifiers. I have placed nearly all the technical
information regarding all that I have built for anyone on line which
is freely available - including lots about active protection measures
which is the best insurance against vacuum tubes which sometimes
sustain BIAS FAILURE or sustain internal arcing within a few months/
hours of use due to bad workmanship during manufacture.

If anyone buys any Chinese made tube amplifier or other amplifier with
Chinese made output tubes then it is FOOLISH to assume there will
never be any early trouble due to tube failures by internal arcing or
bias failure.

The chinese have yet to conform to tube manufacturing standards which
were established in the 1950s in rich wealthy western nations which
manufactured their own vacuum tubes for domestic consumption, partial
export and for national security reasons.

Now I don't say this just to embarrass the Chinese or goad them into
doing more quality control once they find out what quality control
is. I am just stating what seems obvious to me, and I am a technician
who has often been called in to clean up the ****ing mess left by slap
dash Chinese productions. The ameliorating factor to be considered is
that anyone who wanted to by a 211 or 845 in 1955 probably was someone
who wanted it for a commercial transmitter or for military or
government owned body and the price in terms of a week's pay for an
average bloke was horrendous. Ordinary blokes who saved up out of
their wages for a 211 would have been Radio Amateurs who'd want a 211
for their RF finals.

Nowdays, a Chinese 211 costs around AUD $130 approximately when
average weekly wages in Oz have reached $865.00.
So the price today of a 211 is peanuts compared to the cost in 1955.
The reason the cost of the tubes is so low is the extremely low wages
earned by Chinese workers. If Chinese workers were all paid western
nation wages the price would be horrendous like Western Electric's US
made 300B, which is a much easier tube to build than a 211.

Audiophiles have come to enjoy the sonic benefits of 211 and other
high voltage tubes like 211 and KRT100 et all and they often get good
wages and pay a pittance for these tubes compared to what their
grandad paid in 1955.

Not only should they be so grateful that the Chinese slave away in
conditions and for wages they would never ever tolerate at a place of
work, but they should expect some tube failures because the workers
are under duress and often poorly trained because the brighter chinese
are attracted to the better jobs desiging/building military hardware
to blow US satellites out of the sky if an international situation
should call fo it.

So finally I say to Charles who is full of whinges with which I can
empathise - Instal active protection measures against shorting Chinese
tubes and you will save your transformers.

I have a 1957 book written by GE in which 17 amplifier schematics are
described for amps between 5 watts and 1,100 watts. In the book there
are methods given for building circuits to counter bias failure. Back
then there were no solid state devices but there were latching relays
which could be turned on by current from a saturated 12AU7 or 12AT7
triode.
But we have SCRs and bjts et all and these are 1/2 of a saturated
12AU7 or 12AT7 the ere so so n a book I have which was written before
1960in about 1960, I ca

  #17   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 18, 4:44*am, charles rollo charles.rollo.
wrote:
Thanks for the response. A firecracker for sure. No the Opera Cyber 211
amp has no protection circuit. The tube shorted. Since the amp has no
protection circuit and the tubes have a history IMO Grant Fidelity
should have never sold me the tubes. They sell the Amp as well.
My NOS tubes have zero issues were less expensive and are still going
strong. Never again.
Thanks for the link, I will have my tech take a look and design a
protection circuit. Are you in the US ?


I'm in Australia.

http://www.turneraudio.com.au

I'd be happy to design a suitable protection circuit for you if you
can forward a .GIF image of the schematic of your amp.

You should be able to have a tech where you are build the little
circuit board and install it. Usually there is room under the chassis
- where the makers should have originally installed something to stop
you hating them :-) !

Patrick Turner.



charles

--
charles rollo


  #18   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 20, 10:43*am, "Fred" wrote:
"charles rollo" wrote i


snip for brevity and to save a huge scrolling search....

and BTW, I accidently posted prematurely by pressing the wrong key
here so I repeat a previous post starting the same but with the end
done right......

I've been in the audio business for around 40 years, Charles. *I deal with
customers like you by showing them the door. *You took some risks to save
money and when that backfired, you tried to make it someone else's problem.

If I was Grant and ...

I trade with the general public by occasionally selling custom made
amplifiers, re-designing and re-engineering existing amplifiers, and
repairing other amplifiers. I have placed nearly all the technical
information regarding all that I have built for anyone on line which
is freely available - including lots about active protection measures
which is the best insurance against vacuum tubes which sometimes
sustain BIAS FAILURE or sustain internal arcing within a few months/
hours of use due to bad workmanship during manufacture.

If anyone buys any Chinese made tube amplifier or other amplifier
with
Chinese made output tubes then it is FOOLISH to assume there will
never be any early trouble due to tube failures by internal arcing or
bias failure.


The chinese have yet to conform to tube manufacturing standards which
were established in the 1950s in rich wealthy western nations which
manufactured their own vacuum tubes for domestic consumption, partial
export and for national security reasons.


Now I don't say this just to embarrass the Chinese or goad them into
doing more quality control once they find out what quality control
is. I am just stating what seems obvious to me, and I am a
technician
who has often been called in to clean up the ****ing mess left by
slap
dash Chinese productions. The ameliorating factor to be considered is
that anyone who wanted to by a 211 or 845 in 1955 probably was
someone
who wanted it for a commercial transmitter or for military or
government owned body and the price in terms of a week's pay for an
average bloke was horrendous. Ordinary blokes who saved up out of
their wages for a 211 would have been Radio Amateurs who'd want a 211
for their RF finals.


Nowdays, a Chinese 211 costs around AUD $130 approximately when
average weekly wages in Oz have reached $865.00.
So the price today of a 211 is peanuts compared to the cost in 1955.
The reason the cost of the tubes is so low is the extremely low wages
earned by Chinese workers. If Chinese workers were all paid western
nation wages the price would be horrendous like Western Electric's US
made 300B, which is a much easier tube to build than a 211.


Audiophiles have come to enjoy the sonic benefits of 211 and other
high voltage tubes like 211 and KRT100 et all and they often get good
wages and pay a pittance for these tubes compared to what their
grandad paid in 1955.


Not only should they be so grateful that the Chinese slave away in
conditions and for wages they would never ever tolerate at a place of
work, but they should expect some tube failures because the workers
are under duress and often poorly trained because the brighter
chinese
are attracted to the better jobs desiging/building military hardware
to blow US satellites out of the sky if an international situation
should call fo it.


So finally I say to Charles who is full of whinges with which I can
empathise - Instal active protection measures against shorting
Chinese
tubes and you will save your transformers and you'll become tolerant
of the *"Cracker Tubes"* which are unintentionally sold from poorly
paid Chinese manufactures to us western nation big fat rich boys.


I have a 1957 book written by GE titled 'An approach to Audio
Frequency Amplifier Design, seventeen circuits from 5- to 110-watts'
In the book there are methods given for building circuits to counter
bias failure. Back in 1955 there were no solid state devices but there
were latching relays which could be turned on by current from a
saturated 12AU7 or 12AT7
triode.

But we have SCRs and bjts et all and these are dirt cheap and the
parts of a decent protection circuit including a turn on delay circuit
to prevent excessive inrush current can be purchased for less then the
price of a big hambuger with the lot, or about a 1/4 day's pay for a
Chinese worker - next to nothing.

The GE book shows a class AB amp giving 1,100W and which uses V1505
output tubes which are glass bottle tubes of 93mm dia and 344mm high
and the cost was horrendous back in 1955. The tube data is at
http://tdsl.duncanamps.com/pdf/vm086.pdf
Now the cost of a small 5VA slave transformer to power a 12AU7/12AT7
and suitable supply to work a latching relay would have been a small
fraction of the cost of one output tube. The protection costs less
today because we can make simple and reliable active protection
circuits with a few discrete solid state components.

Patrick Turner.





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charles rollo charles rollo is offline
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Location: NYC
Posts: 5
Default

Thanks Patrick I will forward the skematic, you are a ggod man. Thank you in advance.

charles
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Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 26, 9:49*am, charles rollo charles.rollo.
wrote:
Thanks Patrick I will forward the skematic, you are a ggod man. Thank
you in advance.

charles

--
charles rollo


Ah, you overestimate me; I am but a passably good bloke, but have not
yet graduated to a ggod man. One needs special connections with the
God Of Triodes to advance further.... ;-)



Patrick Turner.


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Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Posts: 3,964
Default Full Music 211 tube failure

On Aug 26, 11:51*pm, François Yves Le Gal wrote:
On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 03:04:09 -0700 (PDT), Patrick Turner

wrote:
One needs special connections with the
God Of Triodes to advance further.... *;-)


Take the exam, get a B+.
:-)


Yea, hopefully not to many people score a C- from their exams at the
GOT Building In The Firmanent where exams are held because that result
usually is accompanied by a huge ZAP of Several Thousand Volts, with
the general idea of disuading the applicant from further foolish
persuit of Farnarkling With Triodes.

Patrick Turner.
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