Thanks for the vote of confidence, I'm not so sure but suspect I can find additional guidance if needed!
Thanks all and have a most Happy Holidays!
From my experience it appears that he makes $$ selling the kits, and by servicing them if the opportunity presents itself. Why else would he not be forthcoming about the location of the problem? Either he's an idiot or.....
Perhaps I got spoiled by you guys being really helpful vs. Victor having me measure 23 TPs 4 times with no practical advice. Why would a designer have multiple TPs if not to help debug the circuit?
Basics - are all the valves glowing?
This would at least indicate that the bases were orientated correctly.
Note that the supply voltages at each tube assume the valves are warm and conducting current.
With no current draw the voltages will be higher, at the input tubes you would have full B+ rather than the reduced voltage.
When soldering I always clean PCBs and component leads. They will tarnish in storage. A wipe with fine wet & dry paper works.
A smear of electrical grade flux helps as well.
A PCB based valve kit, the vendor is quite correct, likeliest fault is poor soldered joint (we've all done it) or misplaced part.
Measure each part before fitting - colours and codes can be hard to read.
Unlike a solid state circuit, You are less likely to damage a part through heat from soldering.
But there are not so many parts, easy to test them if in doubt.
Be fair to the vendor. It's not his fault that you have bought a large and expensive kit, as a beginner you really should have started with something simpler.
And be patient. When you cannot see the way forward or you are getting frustrated, pause, take a cup of tea, then go back when in a calm frame of mind.
This would at least indicate that the bases were orientated correctly.
Note that the supply voltages at each tube assume the valves are warm and conducting current.
With no current draw the voltages will be higher, at the input tubes you would have full B+ rather than the reduced voltage.
When soldering I always clean PCBs and component leads. They will tarnish in storage. A wipe with fine wet & dry paper works.
A smear of electrical grade flux helps as well.
A PCB based valve kit, the vendor is quite correct, likeliest fault is poor soldered joint (we've all done it) or misplaced part.
Measure each part before fitting - colours and codes can be hard to read.
Unlike a solid state circuit, You are less likely to damage a part through heat from soldering.
But there are not so many parts, easy to test them if in doubt.
Be fair to the vendor. It's not his fault that you have bought a large and expensive kit, as a beginner you really should have started with something simpler.
And be patient. When you cannot see the way forward or you are getting frustrated, pause, take a cup of tea, then go back when in a calm frame of mind.
They do.
So can I measure w/ no tubes as I will still have the other channel as a reference?
You guys are really nice, I was pretty understanding and measured the TPs 4 times at Victor's request, yet the only thing he came back with is "bad solder joint" "has to be a defective tube", actually he said the only possible thing could be the tube. Folks here looked at tx-> resistor, shunted by a cap and immediately suggested that I measure the tube pins. Perhaps part of the problem is that I have been selling this stuff for decades and in my experience this is not how you treat a client! He was not forthcoming when I asked as to where to focus my efforts, didn't mind wasting my time on a wild goose chase, obviously didn't pay attention to the measurements that I sent him and basically lied to me!
Unfortunately I tend to need to learn the hard way LOL!
This wasn't my first kit the Eros 2 was and sounds great, though I'm very excited by the soon to be released Pearl 3.
Nobody asked, but here are some pics of 1 of my ACA Minis. Not sure if I wanted to show that I'm not a hack or am procrastinating getting ready for work more LOL. Didn't want to post the back of the TU8900 board as I assume that's 
Yeah, I was going to ask you about the Eros 2, and how it sounded relative to anything else. I'm still running a Pearl 1.
jeff
I have listened to many wonderful phono preamps over the years, many at work, but in my current system the only thing I have to compare is the Naim Supernait 3/HiCapDR with a Rothwell MCX for my MC cartridges and straight in to the Naim for MM. The Eros is quite a bit better and very engaging, but it should be fun to see how the P3 compares!
Probably would have purchased a Bottlehead Kaiju as I have wanted to play w/ a 300B amp for a long time, but I'm not a fan of Bottlehead's form factor.
Probably would have purchased a Bottlehead Kaiju as I have wanted to play w/ a 300B amp for a long time, but I'm not a fan of Bottlehead's form factor.
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I may be totally off base, but I find getting answers from Victor difficult and frustrating. I asked several times what the voltage should be at pins 1-9 of the driver tubes. He keeps pointing me back to the 23 TPs in the manual. Perhaps this is sufficient, but @rayma suggested measuring those pins, so my assumption is that that would help to isolate the problem. Part of the problem is that while the rt. channel TPs seem within tolerance I didn't get any output when I tried connecting my phone, so I can't really trust that I have a good reference channel. Ultimately this may be beyond my abilities but with some guidance I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.
All this does is confirm there is some kind of problem., since the channels are so different.
At this point you will have to obtain the schematic from the vendor, or else reverse engineer it yourself.
Otherwise, it's shooting in the dark.
Give him one more chance to be helpful, and if he will not, then we will take things into our own hands.
@rayma thank you so much! I had tried a few additional times, but unlike these forums, and Bottlehead as another example, there is little to no support from Victor. Every time I ask a specific question, ie. what are the voltages at the driver tube pins he refers me back to the 23 Test Points. All he seems to be interested in is having me send him the amp for him to service. Lesson learned, I don't have the chops to troubleshoot without assistance, so in the future I will not purchase from a company/individual who does not offer real support.
Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me as I am waiting for a Tubes4HiFi Sp14, ordered well before this situation.
Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me as I am waiting for a Tubes4HiFi Sp14, ordered well before this situation.
Sorry about this, it reflects very badly on the entire audio industry.
Ok, so there is no audio output, but the DC voltages on the driver tubes of both channels look normal.
Do you have the DC voltages for TP 11 - 16?
There are switches between the audio transformer secondary and the speaker terminals.
These include the switched headphone jack, and the impedance switch.
Maybe there is a problem in this area. Have you tried using headphones?
Have you tried moving the impedance switch?
Ok, so there is no audio output, but the DC voltages on the driver tubes of both channels look normal.
Do you have the DC voltages for TP 11 - 16?
There are switches between the audio transformer secondary and the speaker terminals.
These include the switched headphone jack, and the impedance switch.
Maybe there is a problem in this area. Have you tried using headphones?
Have you tried moving the impedance switch?
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I really can't say enough about how nice and helpful most of the people I have communicated with on this awesome forum are!
I see that I made a mistake transcribing TP7 from page 25 on the previously attached sheet. TP7 appears to be in spec.
Not a peep, I can see that the tubes glow. Did you indicate that the driver tube pin's voltage looked ok? If that is the case it appears that everything specs within limits? If that is true than maybe I doing a Stupid!
I remember back in the day having my Advent receiver at Tweeter in Harvard Square, it had no output. It just so happened that Tom Holman stopped by that day and I showed it to him, he said you need to plug in the jumpers from pre->main, D'Oh! We had been using it with Y's to run a Citation 12 to run 1 pair of Snell A's and the little 15 watt Advent to run a second set! Both of those were purchased directly from Peter Snell, matter of fact, IIRC, 1 pair was the pair he drove around to demo for dealers, LOL. Those were the days!
I remember back in the day having my Advent receiver at Tweeter in Harvard Square, it had no output. It just so happened that Tom Holman stopped by that day and I showed it to him, he said you need to plug in the jumpers from pre->main, D'Oh! We had been using it with Y's to run a Citation 12 to run 1 pair of Snell A's and the little 15 watt Advent to run a second set! Both of those were purchased directly from Peter Snell, matter of fact, IIRC, 1 pair was the pair he drove around to demo for dealers, LOL. Those were the days!