Alas, the Amperex and Haltron appear to be Russian fakes.....I am sure more is to come......
Rebrands for sure. They don't have to be illegit rebrand jobs, though. Things happened.
Alas, the Amperex and Haltron appear to be Russian fakes.....I am sure more is to come......
Here are more tubes to add to your collection of 6AS7G - ".possibly by Mullard or Genalex"
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MATCHED-PAIR-6AS7G-5998-421A-TUBES-ENGLAND-TEST-NOS-/152293701262?hash=item237569768e:g:ecYAAOSwV0RXv0nM
Beware! These are just rebranded Svetlana 6AS7 equivalents made in Russia.
Those bottle shaped GEC tubes on eBay (which all ended 16 hours ago) were findable by searching simply for "6AS7G" on eBay; the listings did not actually include the word GEC, though the seller told me they were made in the same factory as the GEC's, thereby MWT is either a sort of factory code or a rebranded version of those rare GEC's - the only difference being the curved bottom. I was one of the lucky winning bids of the 4 listings - smoothly won the bid right on my way to work at Tesla, and it even happened to be my first time ever winning a bid on eBay.
Per advice from CJ, you just basically wait until the last 10-20 seconds and bid a great margin higher than the others; the max. you're comfortable paying and if you're lucky your bid will fall just slightly over a bid that was much lower than your max. bid entered. CJ (H1) may be able to explain this better than me. Another tip for scouting out rare tubes is searching on hifishark.com then clicking the link at bottom to receive email notifications of your query, when your item becomes available. It's like a used Hi-fi audio search engine that indexes not only eBay, but several other good sources such as Canuck Audio Mart and good 'ol Head-Fi for sale / trade forums.
I certainty don't see how it should be "hard to trust" the quality of a tube just based on bid amounts. The amount of bids received is only a result of random chances that lead people to the listing and are based off face value. OTOH, my impression of the seller's shop photo was he sure seems meticulous and professional! Anyway my 'pair' of ST-shaped GEC's is not a perfectly matched pair however, being sourced from two separate locations.
In the meantime, the W.E. 421A's are a solid performer with the smaller ECC88 Tesla driver tubes
Reviewer: Mark Haynes from Telford, Shropshire United Kingdom |
I have used this brand before, and they did hold up well. I never saw any increase in SQ with these or any other socket saver. By putting another component in the circuit it would seem to me to have a negative effect if any at all. You always have to take with a grain of salt claims of immense improvement, fantastic sound, huge soundstage, resolution beyond belief, these claims are all hyperbole. Funny listening to folks here and other forums describe there latest and greatest find. If you were to find these kind of improvements with each tube roll, that the new ones are so fantastic nothing else compares, you would never go back to the other tubes, there would be no point . It is the same people that always find these fantastic improvements and they never can see that they just got through recomending other combos. THey never learn, probably just want to feel important to the discussion. Find something better, apsolutely, can you discern a better resolution, sure, huge, tremendous discoverys are mostly personal ways to say, yeah, I spent the extra money and of course I can hear diffrencses of 200-400% improvement, because otherwise why did I spend so much on them? Mostly in their own minds and need to hear it so they can feel good about spending the extra money. I am sure the gec's sound better than the ts 5998's and 6080's but 2-300 % better, I just don't see it.
I have used this brand before, and they did hold up well. I never saw any increase in SQ with these or any other socket saver. By putting another component in the circuit it would seem to me to have a negative effect if any at all. You always have to take with a grain of salt claims of immense improvement, fantastic sound, huge soundstage, resolution beyond belief, these claims are all hyperbole. Funny listening to folks here and other forums describe there latest and greatest find. If you were to find these kind of improvements with each tube roll, that the new ones are so fantastic nothing else compares, you would never go back to the other tubes, there would be no point . It is the same people that always find these fantastic improvements and they never can see that they just got through recomending other combos. THey never learn, probably just want to feel important to the discussion. Find something better, apsolutely, can you discern a better resolution, sure, huge, tremendous discoverys are mostly personal ways to say, yeah, I spent the extra money and of course I can hear diffrencses of 200-400% improvement, because otherwise why did I spend so much on them? Mostly in their own minds and need to hear it so they can feel good about spending the extra money. I am sure the gec's sound better than the ts 5998's and 6080's but 2-300 % better, I just don't see it.