Just a little remark abt the 'bang' sound when an Avant shuts down, in my experience it usually sounds worse than it is: the reason for the 'bang' is the fact that, when the avant shuts down because of a failure (so it actually 'trips'), it doesn't shut down the 'nice way' it normally does, meaning it fades down the volume and closes the curtain etc.
This causes the sound power amps to 'bang' via the speakers and doesn't mean fireworks go off...
So far i've never had an Avant with bad solderings, the quality of the boards is very good and the Avant is relatively new still.
What's always an easy option is to check the fault codes in the service menu.
An easy way to check a suspected tube is simply to tap with something like the plastic end of a tooth brush on the tube neck and see (check the screen) what happens.
To do this with the VTR scart unplugged and switch the tv to Vtape also helps (so you get a 'black screen' and should stay like that, it's easy to see if any coloured lines appear in this way).
If all kinds of colouring effects or coloured sparks show on the screen you have a problem....:(
Be carefull with this test, ask someone with tv experience to check if you haven't since the damage may be bigger than the disease...
