Not an isolated case or is it ?

[Guy 13]

Hi all.
I am (Still) waiting for my newly assembled Crack
(By a Bottlehead Forum member)
to be shipped to planet Vietnam.
While waiting, I've been reading everything I can on the Crack,
so I can be a little knowledgeable on what to expect when I finally get
my Crack.
I've noticed that a few 6080 power tubes failed
or should I say they have a more than average failiure rate.
I guess I am wrong saying that
In addition to the stock tube, I have two spares,
one Raytheon 6080 and one RCA 6AS7G.
I hope they won't blow in my face ? ? ?
This never happend to me, even my my first built more than 45 years ago.
I also have two spares of the 12AU7.
Hopefully those blown tubes are isolated cases.

Guy 13

[Paul Birkeland]

Hello Guy13,

We experience less than a 2% failure rate with the 6080's, with the new in box ones tending to be less reliable.

What we do find is a lot of folks who have construction issues and jump right to having a faulty tube.

PB

[mcandmar]

For every 100 happy owners, 1 may have a problem.  Its like buying a car, search for info on any car and you will come to the conclusion its a steaming pile of crap.  Nobody ever posts to say they owned one for x number of years without issue, but plenty will post when they do have an issue looking for help.  From the outside looking in its easy to get the impression of something being troublesome.

[Guy 13]

Hi all.
My post was not a negative one.
I just wanted to have some statistics about failure of the 6080 power tube.
So 2% is not bad at all, of course 1% would be even better...
Thanks for the clarification.
By the way, if many Bottlehead owners show up with their problems on this site,
it's not because more Bottlehead owners have more problems vs the satisfied Bottlehead owners,
it's because Bottlehead give fantastic support to their customers.
Choosing and buying a Crack was the best decision I could make.

Guy 13