I've tried pawn shops with little success. I've bought and sold tubes here in the F/S forums. Other places you could check for tubes are military surplus stores (military pulls of tubes are common), HAM radio clubs/forums, and junk/antique stores.
I often see old valve radios listed in my local free adds as free to good home for restoration perhaps I should go take a look next time I see one listed. The ex military auction lots I have seen the tubes are normally in large mixed lots, so not much good if buying for personal use.
Thanks for the recommendations, some of those resources I've never thought of.
Let's say hypothetically there is an estate sale, and the owner/previous owners have a bunch of tubes stashed away because the owner was a TV repair guy way back in the day. What are the odds of finding worthwhile tubes in that situation? 5%? Less than 5%? I'm wondering if this is a worthwhile approach, or am I just better off buying a lotto ticket. I don't want to be that guy on ebay selling a lot of 150 NOS/NIB tubes in a giant box with a starting price of 20 bucks and zero bids.
Back in the day, most tubes were not used in audio. Creative audio guys experimented and found the tube families that sounded good in audio. A box full of tubes won't be audio tubes, but chances of some being used in audio today will be decent, but not great.
I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff.. I've tried to find out the make but so far have come up empty handed. At first I thought maybe Sylvania, then maybe Philips.. But I'm not sure.
Does anyone here recognize this tube? The second pic shows a very very faint 6080 WB but beyond that, there is no other markings:
I thought that too, but all of the pics of Raytheon 6080WB that I could find show both of the upper circular plates as having little standoffs around the circumference.. Whereas this tube only has them on the lower of the upper plates.
I thought that too, but all of the pics of Raytheon 6080WB that I could find show both of the upper circular plates as having little standoffs around the circumference.. Whereas this tube only has them on the lower of the upper plates.
I was little disappointed at first when I tried Bendix red bank on Crack ,no matter what driver tube I was rolling the sound wasn't what I was expecting ..until I tried this tube on DV336SE and paired with another new acquisition via ebay ,all I have to say this combo can easily compete with BH Crack (5998+E80CC Amperex) (used HD650 with both amps)..just wow !
Anyone familiar with this tube? It's labeled as 'CSF' brand, 6080S, beneath that is a 'H'. All I could find was that it was apparently produced by a (subsidiary of) Thalesgroup, a large French aerospace/defence conglomerate. And a very tenuous link to Thomson tubes (also French). Wonder about the 'S' designation, maybe some indication that they were approved for military use. Sitting in a hotel room now so can't audition them but curious, was very positively impressed by the sound of some NOS 1965 produced CIFTE 6080WA's which I tried (apparently CIFTE/Mazda). Got them dirt cheap and very impressed with the sound, nice, detailed, good spacing between instruments and quite neutral.
Edit: found some more info on the tube, it was made by the Compagnie Générale de télégraphie sans fil in France, designed to meet mil. Standards ( resistance to at least 5 shocks of 450 G, 2000 1-minute interval on-off cycles, vibration etc). Curious to hear it.
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