Vintage tube amps blowing tweeters? Speaker protection?

[audio]

I was just talking to a friend of mine who has an old McIntosh tube amp. He stopped using it because it quit working. He told me that the amp "toasted one of my tweeters". Basically, I guess the amp started making some static and popping noises and fried his speakers. He said that what he did as a precaution was he installed a fuse between the amp and the speakers. This has got me kind of spooked. I realize that vintage amps don't have protection/shut off circuits. Is it a good idea to rig up something to make sure your speakers are covered in the event of disaster?

[Steve Hoffman]

First of all, vintage gear, at least all of my stuff, has fuses that blow when something goes wrong. I suspect a tube went south and took the amp out with it. That can happen, but in 11 years of owning tube gear old and new, it's only happened with new gear and only when using Chinese or Russian tubes. It's never happened with my Mac or Marantz stuff.