JohnW

Don’t buy NOS—buy used. Buy different cheap used tubes until you find a sound you’re happy with, then start collecting them. Old GE tubes are a great place to start. Matsushitas are good too. If you want to spend a bit more, go with RCA or Tungsram. Hell, you can find Telefunkens and Mullards for $50 apiece if you just keep looking.

For 12ax7s stick with old stock.

This saved me a buncha money today. wish I could afford to patronize Upscale Audio.

Damn. I can’t find Gold Lion KT88s anywhere outside of Alibaba Express. May be time to give JJ a try.

Upscale does, but they’ve pulled all Russian tubes from their site.

The Gold Lions are unobtanium now. Shuguang? PSVane? JJ? what’s a guy to do?

Already have one.

I'll bet. Stupid good deal.

Yep.

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649829998-vintage-harman-kardon-hk-430/

I got into the tube game with a Jolida. Still have it. But I do have my eyes on a Dennis Had Inspire...

But maybe that isn't it. I tested across it, both before I soldered it in and after, and those big voltages (5-6) at startup weren't there anymore. I had replaced the filter cap fuses, but the previous ones were the correct ones, and still conducting... Maybe it was the ground.

The resistor I have in there now isn't even getting warm.

It's screwed into the board and into the chassis. I loosened and re-tightened. But perhaps the whole issue was shitty resistors?

That's what I loosened and tightened. Thanks again for all your patience and help. (not that we're done here, of course )

Undoubtedly. But this little victory makes further battles worthwhile. Thing sounds truly amazing. I think I'll keep it, and do what I can to keep it alive, for now.

Loosened and tightened the ground screw on Rectifier A and/or finally got a resistor that doesn’t suck. 1w resistors on the way just in case, though.

I was afraid you'd say that. New caps are on the way. I should likely just buy new transistors and diodes as well, since I can test resistors in the board. I almost want to pay someone locally to dig into this, because I'm in way over my head. But I'm stubborn af

Or should I just pull the rectifier A and B boards, unsolder every diode, capacitor, resistor and transistor, and test them individually?

Ok, so you're suggesting I remove the Red, Orange, and White/Orange wires from Rectifier A and then try powering it up again with the R9 resistor in place? Any idea how the board is grounded? Should I learn how to build a Dim Bulb Tester before I do this?

I read about a recap over on Audiokarma. Poster said they were like, 23.56 mm.

Should I just go through every board and check continuity from every solder point to every solder point? It looks like the lead spacing on the currently-installed 4700uF 35v filter capacitors is about an inch...can't seem to find a matching pair. Any guidance?

BadChile, any idea why it would start with 5-6 volts on the R9 resistor before it drops down to .7-.8? That's the only problem with this amp.

If you have links, that would be great...so far all I can find is sales demos and Rosie O'Kelly...which I haven't found particularly helpful.

Unless I'm mistaken (and I very well could be, I am obviously a novice here), I don't believe it has a relay when you power it up...at least I don't hear one when it starts...is there one in the schematics? I believe I read that there isn't one as well. Because if that's the case...not having one might be the source of our initial overload issues.