"Please Mister, can we play with your valve tester?"
Posted by STEVE M on
Picture this, its the 2025 North West Audio Show and two chaps have timidly entered the Orange Amps demo room....
Well, we sidled into the demonstration room under the stern and glacial visage of the brand impressario in attendance, our eyes fixed firmly on his little valve tester. I nudged Sandeep and he nudged me back "Steve - you ask him." he hissed. "No, you ask him." I quavered.
We timidly approached our nemesis and gave that fateful cry pitched with just the right level of longing and pathos, "Please Mister, can we play with your valve tester?"
Why ever were we so worried for that stern look dissolved into a wreath of smiles as Orange's Consumer Sales Manager, Kevin Grosvenor replied, "Of course you can lads." Just as if it was an every day occurrence that two strange chaps would sidle up before whipping out a brace of Brimar 1959 Rochester production quasi-box anode CV4004 for test on his displayed Orange Valve Tester Mark II!!!!!
And test them it did when after valve type selection, the process went through automatically with the valve tester accurately discriminating an 0.1mA difference in anode current inter valve whilst presenting the result as both a semi quantitative number indicated by a lit LED along side a Good Worn or Fail status LED.
Thank goodness it agreed with the test results obtained with my AVO VCM163 which itself is calibrated against a standardised valve traceable to a NIST/NAMAS primary artefact. Honestly it was so simple to use the Orange Valve Tester Mark II that anyone could use this dinky little machine and so we come to the crux of the matter, who is this machine designed for? 
Is it for the hardcore user who needs the ability to examine valve parameters for any of the 8600 valve types ever made at differing points of their operating curve and quote an accurate quantitative estimation of those parameters with supreme confidence. The sort of user with a wealth of theoretical thermionic knowledge and the ability to drive a £2K+ tester such as the AVO VCM163 without spectacularly destroying either tester or valve? Perhaps not.
Or is it rather for the hifi dealer, needing to QC check valves before sale or for a valve utilising audiophile with an empirical knowledge of thermionics who needs the capability to monitor the relative changes in emission of his valve stash of 14 - 20 different types in a failsafe and convenient fashion - ABSOLUTELY. And this small footprint, elegant valve tester delivers that capability in spades.
If you are the latter type of valve tester user then I can heartily endorse the Orange Valve Tester Mark II - what a smashing little piece of instrumentation it is.