Orange VT1000 Tester

I really need to get a tube tester. I've heard about the Orange VT1000, is this the one to get?

Well... Here's my 2 cents after $1000's in tube testers and tubes.

Lets say you have $1000.

You can spend $500 on a VT1000 to test $500 worth of tubes.
You can spend $300 on a Hickok 300A to test $700 worth of tubes.
You can spend $120 on an EICO 667 to test $880 worth of tubes.
OR you can just buy $1000 worth of tubes and swap them out til you find some you like.

I have a small box of tubes here that test perfectly fine in multiple tube testers, but won't work at all in an amp.

..and I've never seen a tube tester that can tell me which tubes will sound good.

Hope that helps give ya some perspective.

Good Luck!

I have it and it isn't bad....Get a used one if you can to save a few bones.....They tell you if a tube is good (with a rating), worn, or shot....Can't do much else with em and still use my Hickok more often....

I say yard sales and ebay for a good old one (10-$50). It may cost 1-$200 to get it gone through/redone but still^^^^^the guy up there is right . I have tubes that test good in the tester and won't work in the amp or sound like ****.

I go through thousands of tubes annually in the shop and once had a VT1000 for simple testing. Back in 2012-13 when the modular business was booming, I used one on the secondary workbench for the intern to do simple testing on customer modules. As noted above, it's essentially a pass/fail type tester. It wasn't useful to me beyond that for a bunch of reason:

- There are no published specs about what it is actually testing for
- There are no specs on the voltages at which it tests the tubes
- There are only very vague indications of what the numbers it gives actually stand for. More importantly, these numbers do not agree with quality testers I use daily nearly 95% of the time.

I think it's a great tester for someone with little to no understanding of what a tube does and just need some indicator of quality without rolling a bunch of tubes through an amplifier.

Thanks all for your opinions.

I bought one on Rob's recommendation as I am one of those who find " it's a great tester for someone with little to no understanding of what a tube does."
I got it at MF during one of those 15% off anything over a holiday type sale. The first two failed after a month or two. It was frustrating as I would test a tube and it would fail and then I would pull out a tube that I knew was good and it failed. All tubes failed, so I sent it back and then I got another and the same thing. They said something about it needing to be updated. At any rate, the one I have now seems to be fines and it is kind of cool to just do a quick check of a tube.

Seems really expensive for just a pass fail tester.

Maybe it is a lot for what it does. However, it has saved me a lot of time in that when something goes wrong I can quickly get an idea of whether it is a tube or not. It saves me in that I can find out quickly if I need to send the amp or module in. I think I read that it does do a lot of tests on the tube and then in the end it is kind of a pass-fail-meh kind of thing.

studio289 said:

So, after the Orange, what's the next step up on the ladder of tube testers the unwashed masses can afford?

Click to expand...

Snag something like this Russ.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-Hic...355310844?hash=item28212d54fc:g:088AAOSw8w1X6

Or this...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EICO-667-Va...250322?hash=item1eb5bf9452:g:5zMAAOSwdzVXooip

Here ya go Rus, this looks like a decent one

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Eico-666-Va...386519?hash=item4d4c49cbd7:g:jskAAOSwYIxX9qCc

I bet he would come off that price a little too.

EICO's are great testers if you find a good one. I did get a dud once. Fixed it and then it broke again not long after. I have a really nice one that is pretty much my go to for quick tests. Pretty sure it was owned by an anal retentive TV repair man til he died. If I could have only 1 tester, I'd probably say I'd want it to be an EICO. It won't test micromhos, but you can run a lot of great tests on tubes with them.

My go to EICO is sitting right on top of a Hickok tester, but I rarely plug the Hickok in. The Hickok tester is a good tester too. I bought it from an amp repair shop so it was top notch. The EICO is easier to use though, and it actually has caught several bad tubes that the Hickok missed. Also 1/3 the price.

If I needed a tester right now, I'd probably be buying the one in that listing.