mordy - where did you get them from?
Hi Zachik,
I looked for small mixed of lots of 6J5 (and 6C5) tubes and bought whatever was cheap. Most of the tubes cost less than $2-3 each shipped.
I don't have any preconceived ideas of what is going to sound good and with these prices I can afford to try a bunch of different ones: metal, straight glass and ST shape - the ST shape tubes cost more because "everybody knows" that they must sound better since they look much better than say the black all metal rusty top hat ones.
Also bought some glass 12J5GT tubes - $6-7 each shipped. I haven't had the time to go through all what I acquired yet but altogether I have around three dozen tubes by now.
I cannot say yet what I like the best, but the RCA all metal tubes sound excellent. It appears that they manufactured these for other major brands as well, and it appears that some of the Tung Sol and Sylvania 6J5 that I have were made by RCA.
Most of the tubes were bought from eBay (many untested) and from VIVA tubes from their website which seems to offer discounts that don't appear on eBay. But if you check out their offerings on eBay and wait a day or so they may email a 10% discount offer.
Here is how I search eBay:
Type in RCA 6J5 in the search bar
On the next line starting with All Listings click on the drop down menu on the right and choose price + shipping lowest first
Two lines down where it says Price click on the box that says Under $15.00
Tonight there are 103 listings - look for pairs.
Here is an auction for a WW2 pair (VT94 is the military designation for 6J5):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/PAIR-RCA-V...936247?hash=item1a8a916d77:g:QJIAAOSw6INd1Htd
Very few people are interested in these tubes - if you see something you like it usually pays to communicate with the seller and ask if they have more than one if they list a single. Many times you can make a deal with the seller and ask him to post it on eBay for you. This way you have the buyer protection that eBay and PayPal offer.
Personally I am not worried about untested tubes and test ratings 80% or more seem to be just fine. I really don't know anything about test results (from what I read it seems that I am in good company lol) - different testers use different scales and different parameters. I try to ask what the minimum good is if it isn't listed. The tubes in the listing above measure 3600 and 4000 with a minimum of 1640 - seems fine.
Have fun!