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Old 08-31-2022, 08:10 AM
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FreddieFerric FreddieFerric is offline
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Thanks for this post. It's long been suspected, but never comfirmed, that the stock Mc tubes are OEM branded by JJ Electronics. I have the MC1502 that is now only 4 months old, but I am logging hours on it mostly every day.

There's always been a bit of concern over tube life, especially for power tubes. The only other power tube experience I had before this amp was an integrated that ran 4 Tung Sol 6550's. It seems one tube went bad (never found out which one) as the amp kept shutting down after just a few minutes of use. Once I replaced all 4, the amp never had a problem again. My memory of that episode was that I didn't have a lot of hours on the amp, but at only 65 watts, I did run it pretty hard. 10 to 15 years ago tube prices were a lot less than today, so with 8 KT88's in the mix, longevity is a worry.

FWIW, my brother has the MC275 MkVI. Like you, he runs his amp several hours a day pretty much every day and has been doing that for the last 3 years. So far he reports no problems at all. Hopefully his and your good experiences will be echoed by me 4 or 5 years from now. Time will tell.

I realize you didn't start this thread for the purposes of comparing the stock Mc tubes to the Gold Lion tubes, but could you give us a short word or two on how you feel about the sound of the new tubes over that of the old. It would be much appreciated.
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