My CG Finally blew a tube

[zigzagman]

Finally blew a tube in my '01 Ghia.  Last song of set 2 the amp started cutting on and off then went dead.
At the break I quickly diagnosed and hearing the faint sound of a signal from the guitar I knew it was a tube. 
Opened up the back and saw one of the 84s had turned white inside and the top inch+ of the tube had broken off.
It literally Blew!  I had spares in my gear bag, changed both 84s and all was good.
Can't complain though.  Those tubes had been in the amp since 2005 !

[premiumplus (Dave)]

I bet it sounds way better now too...Those tubes were OLD! How many hours of use do you estimate you had on them?

[John]

You might want to change them more often than 13 years. You should change them like oil in a car....periodically. Don't wait for the engine to blow up.

[zigzagman]

Feb 22, 2018 10:06:48 GMT -7 premiumplus (Dave) said:

I bet it sounds way better now too...Those tubes were OLD! How many hours of use do you estimate you had on them?

The amp cleaned up a lot with the new tubes.  The only reason I never changed them was because I liked the way it sounded. Before the tube change it started breaking up around Vol 3.  Now it's clean up to about half Vol and much louder too.  I use the Ghia twice a month for a total of approx 8 hours a month but had a few years when I didn't use it as much...but it's still logged hundreds of hours on those old tubes.