I never even thought of this, how does someone clean the pins on their tubes?

That’s interesting as I’ve only used one of my RCA 6AS7G tubes, 60-22 date, and I do not recall hearing it being noisy. What I do remember is how vast and mellow this tube sounds. What are the date codes for your tubes? Does anybody know if tubes get noisy when they start to wear out?

I have 3 RCA 6AS7G tubes. Two with 60-22 dates and one with a 60-04 date and I was wondering if anyone knows the manufactured dates for these tubes? Also, I have a GE 6AS7G tube, that does not have the GE etching dots, so I think it’s an RCA and I was wondering if anybody knows the...

Right after my previous post, my pre-amp tubes unexpectedly arrived and were due for delivery in two days, so I need to add to my earlier post as the NOS pre-amp tubes I just received changed everything a lot. Long story made short, the slight bass boom and lack of detail was the stock Chinese...

Thanks for the help on the tubes I just received and I’m glad I decided to post my questions here first before I contacted the seller. : ) I pulled out one of the RCA 6AS7G tubes and decided to give it a try (with my HFM HEXV2 headphones, with SPC cable, and toroidal headphone amp) after an...

Hi everyone, I could use your input as I just received “4 NIB 6AS7G tubes” and I think all 4 are used as all four have “caked on film” and a dust ring on the base where the tube meets. It looks like someone took a dry rag and tried to wipe the dust off and ended up wiping off most of the 6AS7 G...

I saw it on eBay and the Seller said the tube is marked 5-52 and that the tube was from 1945. I figured 5-52 was May 1952, but shows what I know. Thanks.....

Does anybody know if a date code on a GE tube of 5-52 means the tube was made in May 1952? Is there a “date code codex” for GE, RCA, Svetlana tubes and what are they? Thanks………..

This thread is awesome!!! Thanks everyone. I’m posting my two 6N3P-E eBay purchase links as the pictures are worth a 1,000 words. The first purchase ($13.90) picture looks like the picture provided of a triple mica with two mica showing and maybe one under the getter (top silver coating). The...

Coooooooool, thanks. I feel like I’m on the right track now, instead of buying tubes blindly, and that I’ve actually done pretty well so far. If I read both posters correctly, my purchases are: Good, 50/50 as some like and some do not, and Maybe Not so Good: Good: Pre-amp: Russian 6N3P-E...

I thought of two more questions: For my GE 6AS7G tube, which I’ve read GE didn’t make this tube and that it was made by RCA or Tung Sol, how can I tell if this tube is an RCA or a Tung Sol? A lot of the tubes I purchased are mentioned by the sellers to not push/pull on the glass, which is...

Thank you for your help. I looked at all of the tubes you recommended and I made a few NOS purchases: I picked-up a bunch of the NOS 6H13C tubes – which are really inexpensive and surprisingly somewhat hard to find. A Philips/Mullard 6080 is really expensive, but I did pick-up a few...

Hi everyone, I’m currently using my toroidal tube headphone amp with a SPC cable for my HFM HEX-V2 and I could use a lot of input for tube rolling. The tubes I have now are Chinese and I could use advice on different tubes and input on if the tubes I just purchased today are “good enough?” The...

A few weeks back a bunch of us here had a pretty in depth discussion on cable swapping and a bunch of us swapped our stock cables for after market copper and silver plate copper (SPC) cables. The general consensus is that the stock HFM cables are not good and are actually pretty awful. I swapped...

Congrat’s on your new Ananda headphones. I don’t know anything about your HFM 650, or what cable you’re using, but have you considered an aftermarket copper cable? A simple cable swap may be your only way to “eq.”

Congrat’s on getting an Ananda. I hope you’ll post your review. For eq settings, I listen flat with my tube amp. However, with my THX I’ll peq a little with a little bass bump around 50 for a bigger and low end extension bump, a low mid bump around 780 to give vocals a little “tube-like”...

Cool, I’m happy seeing so many people here like the HE400i and I too started with HFM and the HE400i. Gawd, the HE400i, that takes me back all the way to before I even had my THX amp and was using a Sound Blaster X G6. I remember being so impressed with the HE400i on the G6 that I decided to go...

I would recommend something with less top end like an HE400i or an LCD-2C. Just my opinion and YMMV.

I know very little about sound cards, but maybe that’s just the way that soundcard is? It might be great at lower volumes, but “completely falls apart at higher volume.” This may just be a design such as .0002% THD at 1K at 100mw, but a full 20% THD at 1k at 200mw? This could be nothing more...

I’m coming in late, but I thought “Dynamic Headroom” was, in an amp: 50 Watts RMS, or 100 Watts Peak; and in speakers, the same thing: 50 Watts RMS, or 100 Watts Peak. Are you both talking about High Current Amps and Slew Rate?

My SPC cable arrived for my Ananda and the results are good, but not as dynamic as the same SPC cable swap on my HEXv2. All songs are FLAC and I’m only using my tube amp and not my ss amp. I listened to my Ananda for a few hours with the HFM cable before I swapped to the SPC cable so I could...

Thanks for your review. Can I ask what headphone cables were you using in this review?

Okay, to begin, I’m using the New Fantasia cable ($43 on Amazon) on the HEXv2 and not the Ananda as my Ananda cable (same cable) is not here yet. Second, I’ve only used the new cable on my tube amp, not my ss. All songs are flac and wav. I was using the HFM stock cables for the Ananda and the...

My Ananda cable arrives in a few days, but my HEXv2 silver plated New Fantasia cable arrived today and I’m using it right now. I think the new cable is a lot different than the stock cable I was using.

In process of editing because of video.