I called just about the only place that does repairs in Green Bay today and asked how much they want for biasing. Their tech said that it was about 3/4 hour's worth of work at $50/hour, so roughly $38. That seemed like a very reasonable price to me. They have Sovtek and JJ tubes in stock. It would be a bit more than ordering them from Eurotubes, but I think I'd rather support the local guys. I also was impressed that he didn't try to "sell" me on tubes. He suggested just trying a JJ in V1 at first and seeing how I like it. Sometimes mixing and matching works wonders.

He mentioned that when he sets the bias he runs it through an oscilloscope to look for some kind of distortion that I was unfamiliar with. He also said that he likes to keep it and play through it periodically for a couple hours because if a tube is going to fail prematurely, it will likely do it right away. I was pretty impressed talking with him. Sounded like a knowledgeable guy. He also said he wanted to talk with me to see what I was looking for tonally.