Good thing that tubes seem to last forever. Can't remember the last time I had to change a tube, even though I play the heck out a my tube amps. Got a few 6V6s and 12AX7s just in case.
Probly a pain for techs though who go through a lot a tubes in their day to day work. Oh well I guess it gets passed on to the customer.
Time keeps moving, things keep changing, we go with the flow and roll with the changes. Ain't no thang.
I guess the thing I worry about with the price of tubes/valves doubling and tripling is what that is going to do to the cost of amps. I mean, a Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue is up in the $1,599 to $1,699 range now. It's probably going to tack on another $200 to the price now.
I was just testing the tubes/valves in two of my amps yesterday. Both Peavey Bravo 112s that I put equal hours on. I keep notes on tube changes in my tool box and the EL84 power tubes had been in the amps over 2 years. They still tested good but one of the tests did show the tubes starting to get weak. The 12AX7 tubes had been in about 1 1/2 years and in one amp they still tested strong, like-new. In the other amp two tubes had some weakness in the testing. So, ended I ended up only changing those that were testing weak.
When tubes/valves were cheaper, I used to just do a tube/valve refresh once a year or so. Just changed them all out. I kept those tubes I took out and held them aside. I tested all those this past weekend and found 5 EL84s and 16 12AX7s that tested strong. So, I'll now be re-using them first, as time goes by.
