AYON KT-SX Tube quality (failure rate?)


I bought a new/demo ("was only played at CES this Jan 2016...") AYON TRITON III from the US distributer this January.

Within 3 weeks 2 of the 8 KT88-SX tubes either expired or the amp complained about the tube. The vendor said: "90 days on new tubes..." ...which meant I was out of luck given his logic. New tubes cost around $180 or so.

I have either spoken with other Ayon owners on this or other forums, in private (after posting about Ayon) or when seeking to buy these tubes from them.

Guess what?

They have had the same failure rate.

Please weigh in: I am relatively new (1 year) to tube gear and have no idea if I should expect more monthly replacements. (I bought 3 matched quads of new Gold Lion KT88s, but the Ayons sound quite good to me, I just am appalled at the failure rates I experienced or heard about.)
128x128vicweast
The first "professional" program I wrote was in Cobol. I hated the language, years later I loved C. Loved Unix, worked at Sun for over 10 years - the best group of engineers I've ever known. Alas. Retired a few years ago, but got mentally bored. Last July decided to invest 100% in Swift/iOS and the emerging frameworks around AR, AI, health, etc. It is a phenomenal time to be starting a 1-person software company for iOS platforms. And I am still enjoying learning and producing, each and every day (what the heck is a weekend?)

I also recently (3 years ago) went into both the hires digital (I had/have over 30k tracks I ripped ACC 320) and vinyl. They are both a pleasure, depending on the music... recently I have started a real treasure hunt in archive.org in recent Steve Kimock and also KIMOCK concert recordings. I heard "Satellite City" and freaked out on Kimock, Leslie Mendelson and the rest of the fluid members.


Love tubes have a TW Acustic phono stage (18k) but it has 6dj8 (2) and 12ax7 (2).as they are not power tubes there is no problem with reliability.I gave up on tube amps over 20 years ago because of output tube failure however  that is only me there are great tube amps out there that are very reliable. Enjoy!!
Agreed. This is why I am so enamored by the ideas that http://www.atma-sphere.com has implemented with their OTL amps. Tube reliability seems remarkably high with their gear. (I almost bought a previously-owned unit, but it didn't work out.)