Mystery appears solved. Grumble. It was a fuse. I wrongly assumed the values on the white iec fuses were same. Wrong! And I either blew out or replaced the 1.6 a with a burned out one. Note I have 2.0 fuses not 1.6 amp. Now retested 10a and 1.6 (2)a and they are both good and now in correct places and AUDIO!
Too pooped to listen. 3+ hours of troubleshooting and trying to figure it out. Tomorrow.
Hanging upside down over amp it’s awkward to do things in the rear panel.
Fwiw I use 6 dj8 tubes, once and no longer available from Upscale audio.
So glad the issue is resolved. I’ll repeat my earlier recommendation which is to have a full set of fuses, all of correct values for all your fused components on hand as spares.
And turn off the main switch in the rear and then unplug the unit before replacing them.
If the system sounds good when you fire it all back up, you can think about new tubes at your leisure.
3000 hours is not a lot for the little input tubes.
I’d just like to acknowledge and thank the tenacious and patient and helpful and knowledgeable and kind members of this forum for helping out (not just here, but all over, everyday) and the equally tenacious and patient people with problems.
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus—lots of them in fact.