First new tube tester in years. Excellent.

Will we get the guitar relicing video soon?

Dude!! I have a bugera 333xl that the distorted channels have basically no volume no matter how load I turn it up but if I run a signal like a preamp or my hx stomp into the return of the fx loop and it works perfectly fine as a power amp. It’s really load being a 120w tube head but the tech I took it to checked all the valves and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it and said to take it apart would basically cost more than buying a replacement

You should go on tone talk with Dave Friedman.

This is a wildly informative video. This whol channel is great. I only recently started molding guitars. But I've learned a lot here.

Neat contraption. Personally I have a 5W practice amp from Harley Benton that was so laughably cheap that if it ever develops a problem I'll chuck it and get another one.

Great point on who it's for. I used the original unit for years, and it worked great to quickly identify the state of a tube, and then a good tech can use their ears to decide from there. The one complaint we always had, and it seems Orange tried to address with the microphonics testing, is that to truly test the roadworthiness of the tube - it should have a vibration monitor inside! Emulate the shake! SHAKE IT!

I got the first generation of the valve tester and have had it for years. It does the job well.😊

Awesome video

For that price I'd buy a MaxiMatcher.

Aaand THE BIG QUESTION: how much is the sucker?

On the thumbnail I thought it was just going to be a cheeky lesson in how to tap valves with a branded pencil for microphony.

I know it is a bit of a niche product, and I really badly need one, but 850€?! I mean I get it, Orange is not gona sell as many of those as for example their amps or heads, but man, that's soooooo expensive😢

I used to work for Marshall (terrible employer with 1960s-whip-cracking values in the 1990s so I left) We tested if the valves were microphonic by tapping them individually and listening to find if any were significantly louder than the rest ...with no signal passing. With this in mind your vintage amp may not have passed this test when it was brand new. Just sayin'.

I am not very happy with this. I purchased this Orange MKII valve tester immediately after they released it. It shows faulty readings on 5% of my new tubes. Or it shows a green light (good) when a tube does not pass any sound in an amplifier. Also sometimes both lights illuminate. Either green and red altogether or green and amber. They were able to replace the first valve tester MKII I purchased. However, the second one they sent does the same. I even sent the problematic valves causing the issue to Orange headquarters. So they can trace the problem. Never heard back from them since. I am not sure if it's worth the price I paid. It might be good for a guitarist who wants to check the tubes in his amp. If you do repairs I don't recommend it. But why would a guitar player spend 850 quid to test a few tubes? You could just simply replace all your tubes and save money.

wow, orange finally made something I would actually buy. Gotta keep the amp collection maintained.!

Have the mk1 version and still working great after all these years... hundreds of valves tested at my workshop... had to resolder all the tube socket pins due to wear and Stress... apart from that... works like a charm... nothing to complain

Not as techy as units 50 years ago but with it jammed packed with IC chips and perhaps a CPU or two is just why it is “cratering to the typical guitarists carnal capabilities”.👍

Rather than all of us having to buy one of these, it would be great if someone who did own one offered a mail-in tube test service. Like most of us, I have a drawer full of tubes with unknown health that I've acquired from various places over the years. I'd gladly pay a reasonable fee to send them off and have each of them checked so I know what I actually have. Or if a local music store had one that you could pay a few bucks and bring in your tubes to test. It's always a bit ambiguous to use them for swapping with questionable tubes in an amp I'm working on since I don't know if they're actually good.

Do the different valves make a significant difference to the sound of the amp? I am sure at hi-gain their may not be great differences but i for one would be interested in the sicence behind this. Also does cost make a difference on the Valve?

I miss the short bits at the end of the video

Excellent stuff, keep it up - from an aging analog and SIPI Engineer :)

1:42 you mentioned Hi-Fi and valve in the same sentence? daring today aren't we?

I would be interested in a less expensive 9-pin tube tester .. one that only tested el-84s and ecc83 would probably fly off the shelves at the right price. just one socket, less interface, and much less processing power.....the problem is, it would still need a power supply; and that costs.

I'm surprised you overlooked the testers that were everywhere in local repair shops. Complete idiots could easily use them.

if I had a higher power Si rectifier amp, it would eventually pay for itself. ( or like a bassist who runs a Traynor YBA 300, would waste a lot of money if they didn't get one ) but my only tube amp is a 5Watt with a 6Z4, so it's better to just swap tubes at reasonable intervals.

£850 LOL

I need one, I don’t have a tube amp nor any tubes to test, but it looks neat 😂

Colin, Really cool piece of kit! Does operating the tester require wearing black and red gloves? :D

Young folks and volume drop in a tube amp...🔥

Man, I love Orange. I know they get a lot of love but they really don’t get enough. They’re not perfect, but the idea that they make a device like this is awesome. I wish people understood that while yes they’re not quite Fryette or Friedman build quality, in particular my OR30 and AD30 are built so much better than amps that cost 2-3 times as much that most guitarists will generally regard as “so much better” just because it costs more. There’s a certain other British amp manufacture who while I love their amps and own more than one of them, Orange build quality (UK made anyway) is objectively better and more people need to know about it. In that respect, Orange doesn’t get enough recognition.

Holy Cow! It's about time something like this is made available to techs! The last "Tube Tester" I ever saw was at a Radio Shack in the mid 80's. That was a monstrosity, but it did very similar tests on many kinds of valves, not just ECC8x or 12A_7 and the 3 major power amp valves. Some of the socket designs dated way back to the invention of valves, or shortly after (late 20s, early 30s?). It also only told you if the valve was ok, worn or dead...that's it. This much more advanced device looks like something our shop needs.

If this is affordable, this is a great tool for a guitarist. Not for a tech necessarily (however plenty of amp techs are used to working without a valve tester altogether), but it's a good middle of the spectrum product. Like do you want to hunt for a huge valve tester from the 60's for god knows how much money just to have any indication of the valve health? Looked up the price for this, at £850 (but free delivery worldwide!) this is far beyond the reach of any guitarist and most techs so I have no idea who this product is for. What is the target audience that is willing to put that much money into a monitoring device that's not absolutely fully featured? It's way easier to monitor some audible or behavioral changes and just replace with a new tube, or trying a backup tube to see if it fixes the problem and then getting a new one if it's very high quality. I assumed this to be priced at 100-200 euros and being a reasonable buy even if you don't absolutely need it.

This self-correction reinforces my confidence in you, Colin. You were right to take down the faulty video. You are NO fraud! You’re a human being. Even the best can sometimes miss the obvious. How many of us have meticulously packed all of our gear for a gig…and forgot a guitar cable!

$1100... thats a no from me dog. I know its a handy piece of equipment for techs but it's double what the previous version sold for.

"Orange really are catering to the typical guitarist's cranial capabilities in making this device super simple to operate." I feel personally attacked...

Ooh man the price is steep. But collecting old tubes and never using them because they might be bad is expensive too… Also great for testing new “matched” tubes

If a guitarists has 850 EU/USD i guarantee they're just gonna buy a new amp. We're phenomenally dumb like that.

This could actually save the amp owner some money if they discovered the tubes replaced are actually still good. Especially if it becomes possible that the good ones matched gains.

99% of the time its not your tubes, you just want it to be because thats the simplest possible repair.

Electronics stores used to have tube testers in them... that was a verrrrrrrry long time ago. Glad to see one of these readily available.

Pretty fascinating stuff man. Great vid

850€ ?? No thanks

I need one of these now. Great video

Again those Phonic Micro tubes true to form!

Thank god for amp modellers

Another thing about replacing valves, many amps will require the valves to be (re)biased. Now that is beyond most guitarists.

Blackstar is killing it with amp innovation.

The Messa Bogie Dual Rectifier right now is shivering that he is next. lol. i hope. in next video please.

Colin's the man!