Expected working life of 845 tubes

A

Anil Kalagatla

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I just bought an 845 based (used) SET amp and it came with a small collection of somewhat used 845 tubes (I think the seller said low hundreds of hours) so I was curious about what the expected life of these tubes is. I'm fairly clueless about tube amps as I have mostly used SS amps until now (except for an amp for Stax headphones). In general, how does one know when the tubes are nearing their useful life? This amp also uses a couple of 845 tubes for voltage regulation and the manual recommends that they need to be matched to avoid hum. I assume I will need a tube tester to ensure matching?

Thanks from a tube newbie!
Anil
 
Most, if not all, of the "common" tube testers are not capable of testing an 845 tube.
There are several companies that offer a testing service for them.
Also several youtube vidios for building a tester for these power tubes.
As for life expectancy, can't provide any info there.
 
Thanks, I will follow up on testing services for future reference. All the tubes are new enough that this is not an immediate concern, but I was curious about how to tell when they're getting old.

As for building a tester, given that I can barely solder, I will not trust myself to build a tester for high power tubes :-)

Anil
 
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