New Traynor YBA 100!!

[Loring]

I would reach out to Yorkville/Traynor and let them know that you had problems and out of pocket costs, in getting the amp working. Historically, they have stood by their products, well beyond most competitors and would likely be appreciative of your heads up.
Fishheadjoe

Agreed.

I do find it odd though - years ago I applied for a job there ( around 2000) and they were physically plugging in and testing every amp as it came off the line. I got a very cool tour of their facilities!

You would think faulty tubes would show up.

 

[Fishheadjoe]

Maybe @GrapeBass could find time to speak with the engineers and let them know what has been going on. Regardless, i would not hesitate to contact them, they really are good people, many of whom have worked their entire careers at Yorkville.
Fishheadejoe

 

[RoadRanger]

BTW anyone who says theirs isn't as loud as a V4B should try a new set of preamp tubes - mine now kills small animals no prob .

 

[RoadRanger]

I do find it odd though - years ago I applied for a job there ( around 2000) and they were physically plugging in and testing every amp as it came off the line.
You would think faulty tubes would show up.

The circuits they used aren't as dependent on tube gain as typical guitar amps - below 1 gain cathode followers and gain stages that lack cathode resistor bypass capacitors are mostly to somewhat tolerant of crap tubes (good engineering these days IMO). But you can go from "meh" (or worse) to "holy poop!" with a proper set of $15 each preamp tubes. As I said I have yet to check out the power tubes to see if they are 100% in spec.

BTW I'm still running the gain at full on and find that once the tubes heat up for a song or two that there is (just) enough gain for the preamp overdrive to satisfy me. And I'll say again that the amp itself is beautifully constructed.

 

[GrapeBass]

Maybe @GrapeBass could find time to speak with the engineers and let them know what has been going on. Regardless, i would not hesitate to contact them, they really are good people, many of whom have worked their entire careers at Yorkville.
Fishheadejoe

All I could suggest is to contact our service department to let them know. I think their email address is [email protected]

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[GrapeBass]

I finally got ahold of a crappy looking tube tester from fleaBay and tested the three 12AX7WA's from amp #1 and only one triode section out of the six tested OK . So, kinda wondering if the tube tester was FUBAR I tried a new 12AX7WB just in from Tubedepot. It tests fine . I'll test the other two that I bought for my second amp and test out the ones I'm going to pull. But you folks should all have yours tested out before your amp craps out at a gig. Dunno where Traynor got these from but their QC sure sucks eggs - shame on you Traynor for building an awesome amp and filling it with reject tubes .
Now I'm worried about the 6L6's, I'll test them also soon.

EDIT> Tested all three 12AX7WB's that I received from Tubedepot and all tested good and pretty much the same readings. They 100% test the tubes they ship which is an absolute necessity with any modern production tubes - the factories ship a fair amount of duds (or sells them to Traynor it would seem LOL).
Went back and retested the Traynor crap tubes and they still test bad.
Just pulled the three Traynor 12AX7WA's from amp #2 and they all test bad also .

All I could suggest is to contact our service department to let them know. I think their email address is [email protected]

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[RoadRanger]

Maybe @GrapeBass could find time to speak with the engineers and let them know what has been going on.

I see he was just here reading this thread . But dunno if he has a position there where he can be heard - big companies tend to dislike bad news. Anybody from Traynor wants to reach out feel free but I'm not gonna go beating on their door. The less people that buy these amps or the more that return them the more mine will be worth LOL. As for TBers, you now know what to look for and how to fix it for under $50. Tubes will always be a PITA, embrace the suck or go back to SS (love my TH350).

One danger of most tube testers (even the expensive mutual conductance ones) is that they do not fully test the tube under the target operating conditions. The cheaparse EMC 213 emissions tester I'm using is of a class of testers that can give "false goods" for certain types of faults as can the more expensive ones for different kinds of faults. None give "false bads" AFAIK but a tube that tests low may still function somewhat in some circuits. I'm assembling another tester that can do actual gain and plate resistance measurements at real operating conditions up to 450 volts 300 milliamps - but can't look for shorts and low cathode emission so the two testers will complement each other nicely .

 

[GrapeBass]

I see he was just here reading this thread . But dunno if he has a position there where he can be heard - big companies tend to dislike bad news. Anybody from Traynor wants to reach out feel free but I'm not gonna go beating on their door.

One danger of most tube testers (even the expensive mutual conductance ones) is that they do not fully test the tube under the target operating conditions. The cheaparse EMC 213 emissions tester I'm using is of a class of testers that can give "false goods" for certain types of faults as can the more expensive ones for different kinds of faults. None give "false bads" AFAIK but a tube that tests low may still function somewhat in some circuits. I'm assembling another tester that can do actual gain and plate resistance measurements at real operating conditions up to 450 volts 300 milliamps - but can't look for shorts and low cathode emission so the two testers will complement each other nicely .

I work in the engineering department but feedback through the sales department get heard much better than from my position. What I've learned from the person in charge of the final test and assembly area is that we're having lots of issues with tube suppliers. These are challenging times.

FYI played through the release candidate for the BB115 today, it's friggin' LOUD!

 

[Lowendtech]

FYI played through the release candidate for the BB115 today, it's friggin' LOUD!

Huh, whazzat?

never mind. Found it.

 

[RoadRanger]

What I've learned from the person in charge of the final test and assembly area is that we're having lots of issues with tube suppliers. These are challenging times.

Yup - even Behringer is in-house testing their tubes (according to them) as you just can't trust the suppliers.
Bugera | Our Story
If they know you aren't in-house testing (AKA rejecting the duds) the communists will for sure ship you the ones other manufacturers have rejected LOL. There is absolutely no way any of the six I was shipped could have passed a real in-house QC/test. I'd contact Traynor and try to get them to ship me some good ones but unless they have changed their QC I'd probably just get another six duds ... not worth the effort. Hopefully someone will let us know when they start shipping awesome from the factory with no re-tubing needed .

 

[joetiii]

Well I will tell you that I got one of the early runs and the JJs that shipped with it all had good gain. I wasnt happy with the sound of those tubes so I rolled in some new ones. Some NOS and some Mullards from Tube Depot. One of the Mullards out of the box had really low gain so they sent me another. That long plate was good for maybe three uses in the amp before it crapped out. I replaced it with a GE 5751 in slot 3 and have been happy ever since. TD has good customer service and I did have the tubes tested before shipping which is extra, but there is no way they can tell how long some of these are going to last. I still have one of there Mullards in slot 2 and seems to be holding up well. I have never had this problem with NOS tubes so I will stick to the oldies but goodies.

 

[Koshchei]

Well I will tell you that I got one of the early runs and the JJs that shipped with it all had good gain. I wasnt happy with the sound of those tubes so I rolled in some new ones. Some NOS and some Mullards from Tube Depot. One of the Mullards out of the box had really low gain so they sent me another. That long plate was good for maybe three uses in the amp before it crapped out. I replaced it with a GE 5751 in slot 3 and have been happy ever since. TD has good customer service and I did have the tubes tested before shipping which is extra, but there is no way they can tell how long some of these are going to last. I still have one of there Mullards in slot 2 and seems to be holding up well. I have never had this problem with NOS tubes so I will stick to the oldies but goodies.

I swapped mine out with Mesa tubes - Mesa gets first kick at the can with most tube types (12AX7 and 6L6), and test everything, so you're pretty certain to be getting the good stuff. The preamp tubes look like JJ (the SPAX7 is hard to tell though, as it's got a rubber sheath), and no idea who makes their 6L6s currently, though I *suspect* that they may be Ruby.

 

[RoadRanger]

Well I will tell you that I got one of the early runs and the JJs that shipped with it all had good gain.

Yeah, I was surprised that mine didn't have JJ's as folks on this thread reported that was what was in theirs - as I said if I had known that mine had Sovtek 12AX7WA's instead I would have ordered JJ's instead of the 12AX7WB's I bought but they work good enough for me - but I'm not all that choosy.

I wasnt happy with the sound of those tubes so I rolled in some new ones.

What didn't you like about the JJ's? Want to sell them?

TD has good customer service and I did have the tubes tested before shipping which is extra

Their website says ALL of their tubes are tested by them - but you can pay extra for certain additional testing like selection for high gain (meh) or balanced triodes (probably a good idea for the phase amplifier section).

 

[RoadRanger]

I'm messing about with a few other (guitar) amps and just ordered up some 12AT7's selected for balance for phase inverter duty - anybody tried one in the phase amplifier slot of their YBA100?

 

[RoadRanger]

Hmm... Anyone out there know what output tubes came in their amp? I kindof assumed they would be 6L6GC's but I've seen nothing that says you can't use any type of 6L6, even the original 19 watt version .

In any case I'll try to pull mine tomorrow for a look-see and also measure the balance and limits of the "normal" bias range.

As the amp is already rated for the greater filament current of EL34's I suspect it would handle 6550's as well if one was so inclined.

 

[joetiii]

What didn't you like about the JJ's? Want to sell them?

The original JJs were ECC83S and sounded very dark playing my G&L L2000. The humbuckers easily over drove those short plate preamp tubes even through the padded input. I could not hear any difference in series or parallel. It was all mud. I picked up some long plate JJ ECc803s, Mullard and NOS Sylvania. So much more clarity now in those big beefy humbuckers, but I will keep the short plates as back up.

 

[RoadRanger]

Well - put a US made 12AT7 (tested for balance) in the phase amplifier slot and it seems to work fine. I still have a pair of Sovtek 12AX7WB's in the other two slots. I removed the army of screws to get the top off and the output tubes were 6L6GC JJ's that have Ruby stickers on their bases that indicate that they are a matched quad. Just for yucks I pulled them all and put a pair of matched Russian 6P3S (6L6 clones) in. These amps seem to be biased WAY cold, I had to go well into the red to bias to the 30ma plate current that these tubes want (red comes on about 26ma), the original 6L6GC's would want 36-45ma.

 

[joetiii]

So if I remember your earlier posts correctly, you mention that phase inversion in this amp is handled by a chip rather than a preamp tube. That being the case, subbing in a 12AT7 in P5 is effectively reducing your gain. And lack of gain was a problem you encountered (as did I) when these amps were first delivered. I am curious how loud the amp will now sound when you bring it to band practice.

 

[RoadRanger]

So if I remember your earlier posts correctly, you mention that phase inversion in this amp is handled by a chip rather than a preamp tube. That being the case, subbing in a 12AT7 in P5 is effectively reducing your gain. And lack of gain was a problem you encountered (as did I) when these amps were first delivered. I am curious how loud the amp will now sound when you bring it to band practice.

Hopefully I can find my load bank tomorrow so I can 'scope the output and see if it still overdrives enough for me. I'll also be able to "see" if the bias is hot enough to eliminate crossover distortion below the "red" range.

 

[Coot]

I'm making an assumption it will sound like a YBA-300 just with lower overall volume. Appears to me everything about it is virtually the same with of course the notable exception of less tubes. I've rented a YBA-300 several times and been impressed by that amp, that's what makes me think the YBA-100 will be an easy decision to buy.

Yes, you are correct. I tried them both ( yba 100 and 300)at a L and M last week . I bought the 300 cause it was on sale for 800.00..great sounding heads ..