[Ultralight]

Greetings,

Very happy to have found this forum dedicated to tubes.  I'm looking to pick up my first budget tube amp and have read a few dozen hours on the web. 

My initial questions are a bit unusual I'm sure but hope the pros here can help....

1. How fragile are tube amps?  I'm thinking of transporting one by packing it as one would for shipping, but checking it as airline baggage.   If I remover the tubes to hand carry, are there many other parts that are likely to break under airline baggage handling?

2. Some of the better amps exceed airline weight limit.  Not having modified any tube amps, are the parts easy to disassemble so that I can split the weight between two boxes?

Thanks in advance for any help.

UL

[JohnR]

They're not fragile at all, assuming they are reasonably well built and the tubes are taken out. However, they are heavy so if dropped, damage seems quite likely anyway. I've always packed them double-boxed with layers of 1 or 2 inch foam within each box. I'd probably put a third layer, straps, and handles for airline shipping... if the amp is worth much.

You could probably remove the transformers. But you are basically disassembling the amp, it's not hard if you're experienced in electronics but if you're asking the question then I'd say probably best not to...  It's a lot of trouble though, any reason to not just ship it?

[srb]

Although UPS, FedEx and other shippers have certainly mishandled shipments resulting in damages, I think your amplifier would, on average, be handled better by package shippers than transporting it as baggage on an airline.
 
Steve

[Ultralight]

Thanks.  Used to be an electrical engineer by education about 20 years ago but never practiced in that discipline so I've forgotten a lot but can probably figure things out in a bit in terms of taking things apart.

As to why plane and not shipper, it's because I make two trips to China each year and am currently in China.  Thinking about bringing one back to get my toes wet into tube amps.   I may well visit a gentleman who designs and build tube amps next week in China.

I'll probably post a different thread about budget tube amps.  Currently the Yaqin MC10L & 20L easily looks like an easy 'best buy' with the likes of Jolida and MingDa following closely.  But there are so many other brands here too.  Anyways, will post in a different thread.

Thanks!
UL

[Steve]

Although UPS, FedEx and other shippers have certainly mishandled shipments resulting in damages, I think your amplifier would, on average, be handled better by package shippers than transporting it as baggage on an airline.
 
Steve

I agree. I have also found that FedEx seems to handle my packages better than UPS. DHL was the best but from my information, they are international only.

Cheers.

[roscoeiii]

+1 on FedEx, and make them plaster the box with up arrows and fragile stickers.