[Tubejunke]

Carmine mentions checking/changing tubes as opposed to a "shotgun approach" of cap replacement. Dont worry man I put up a fairly high resistance to replacing caps. I check everything else first. I have become confused trying to test caps. What I mean is there have been many times I have disconnected one lead from the circuit and used an analog ohm meter to watch the needle sweep to zero and fall back to a high resistance reading and assumed the cap was ok because the needle didnt stop at some low resistance. In later frustration I change the cap and the problem goes away. This is basically what the books say about testing caps. I have a digital meter with a capacity feature that I'm not really sure how to use. Of course I realize that the digital job will give me a reading of the value of a component. I really wish someone could give advice on a good way to know if an old cap is really good. Anyhow the reasons I jumped to the cap conclusion is the fact that I had replaced the vert tube and got no result, also the hum in the speaker, and no signal. Kinda has capacitor trouble written all over it. My frustration with finding faulty ones short of replacement made me think of replacing them all.....