[Monsterzero]

The wife and I miss going out to see live music and going out to eat

Yeah same,especially the music part. Ive turned my wife onto Blackberry Smoke and now she wants to see them live...(the pre-conditioning for the south has begun)

Love these guys!

 

[Xcalibur255]

A few years back I was without power for 11 days after an early snowstorm dumped 4 feet of snow on us in 48 hours. It was in the fall too. Those are devastating because the trees haven't lost their leaves yet so it just destroys everything. After it's all done you could tell people a tornado when through town and they wouldn't know the difference. Buildings missing roofs, every tree destroyed........

Then this summer's treat was the baseball sized hail. Destroyed all my windows in my apartment and some of the things inside that were close enough to those windows to be within smashing range. Now 3 months later I still do not have any windows, they're just boarded over with plywood still and the ceiling lights drip brown water out of them when it rains because the roof was never repaired either. Parking lot covered from end to end in broken glass still from all the smashed car windows.

This year is just one great big mind *** between covid and the surrounds I live in now.

 

[leftside]

After reading these stories, I'm never going to complain again about the rain we get here in the winter. The last time I remember the power being out for an extended time was when I was growing up in England in the 70's. The country was in a downward spiral and run by the unions. Tough to get coal for heat as the coal miners would always be on strike. The hydro/electrical guys would always be on strike as well, so quite often we'd have no power or heat. Great time for music though - the tough times spawned a lot of bands that I still like today.

 

[whirlwind]

Yeah same,especially the music part. Ive turned my wife onto Blackberry Smoke and now she wants to see them live...(the pre-conditioning for the south has begun)

Love these guys!

Yeah man, these guys are great. One Horse Town is a great song, my wife's favorite. I have three albums.. Holding All the Roses / The Whippoorwill / Find a Light

 

[Monsterzero]

Yeah man, these guys are great. One Horse Town is a great song, my wife's favorite. I have three albums.. Holding All the Roses / The Whippoorwill / Find a Light

They do some killer cover tunes as well. They did a cover of the "The Night They Drove Dixie Down" "Everythings Going to be Alright" and "You Got Lucky"

 

[chrisdrop]

How much do you guys like the Mullard ECC32? I have a chance to get one and I know they are liked, but not sure how much they are liked. Any thoughts welcome.

 

[L0rdGwyn]

How much do you guys like the Mullard ECC32? I have a chance to get one and I know they are liked, but not sure how much they are liked. Any thoughts welcome.

IMO is one of, if not the best, dual triodes ever made. Not quite a 6SN7 equivalent, it will typically work in 6SN7 circuits like the GOTL, but it is a more current hungry tube with higher gain.

 

[mordy]

I got what look like the same tubes as this a few weeks ago, RCA 12J5GT, in the box labeled as Bendix (but says RCA on the tube), and also from 1942. I've spent probably 2 weeks with them in the SN7 slot now (as a pair using an adapter) and I actually think I like them better than their metal 6J5 cousins. These are the only glass RCA J5 tubes I have, but I have too many metal version to count, including several that are right around the same years as the 12J5GT. They have the same characteristics as the metal 6J5 (nicely described by @wenbinbin2010 ), I just think the 12J5GTs have a bit more of what I like about the metal 6J5s. Yes, they were more expensive, but I am ok with $20 for the pair.

Hi GDuss,
Always receptive to other people's recommendations, I pulled out a pair of 1946 RCA 12J5GT that I have. When I got them I did not find them special, but decided to try again, now in combination with other tubes than what I used in the past.
Having tried the 6Z7 for a while I felt that I heard some of that grunge with the RCAs as well, but after giving them due time they now sound really good and musical and sweet without anything irritating me.
Don't know if my brain have to readjust or if the GOTL had to readjust itself as well after running a non standard tube.
Is it possible that an amp needs time to readjust after using a certain tube for a while? I felt that way with my Elise/Euforia as well - maybe something to do with a self adjusting bias circuit (don't know if the GOTL has such a circuit).
In any case, it sounds so nice now that I don't want to stop listening even though it is getting (too) late.....

 

[GDuss]

Hi GDuss,
Always receptive to other people's recommendations, I pulled out a pair of 1946 RCA 12J5GT that I have. When I got them I did not find them special, but decided to try again, now in combination with other tubes than what I used in the past.
Having tried the 6Z7 for a while I felt that I heard some of that grunge with the RCAs as well, but after giving them due time they now sound really good and musical and sweet without anything irritating me.
Don't know if my brain have to readjust or if the GOTL had to readjust itself as well after running a non standard tube.
Is it possible that an amp needs time to readjust after using a certain tube for a while? I felt that way with my Elise/Euforia as well - maybe something to do with a self adjusting bias circuit (don't know if the GOTL has such a circuit).
In any case, it sounds so nice now that I don't want to stop listening even though it is getting (too) late.....

Hi Mordy, I'm glad you are enjoying the RCA's. As you know, I'm a a big fan of the metal 6J5/6C5 from the early to mid-40's, but there is something about these RCA 12J5GT's that I think tops the metal versions. It's not by much, but enough to want to stick with the glass versions for a while.

As for readjustments with tube changes, my impression of tubes can be substantially influenced by what tubes I had in before them. But I've typically attributed that to the set point of my ears and everything downstream of them. Maybe the amp can change as well, but likely not as much as my auditory circuitry. There aren't too many things that display as much plasticity as the human nervous system. A good example is how when you are in a loud environment (e.g. music club or sports stadium), someone can yell directly into your ear and you won't hear them. If the same person yells into your ear at the same volume, but in a quiet room, you won't enjoy that very much. Those hair cells in your inner ear are really good at adjusting their set points.

 

[whirlwind]

How much do you guys like the Mullard ECC32? I have a chance to get one and I know they are liked, but not sure how much they are liked. Any thoughts welcome.

The ECC31/32/33/35 are all very good .....budget comes into play here as they are pretty expensive and there are tons of cheaper tubes, but there is no denying that these are wonderful tubes.

 

[dminches]

If I want to measure the amps and volts a 300B tube is pulling would I use a meter across the 2 heater (large) pins?

 

[L0rdGwyn]

@dminches if you want to measure the DC voltage drop across the pins, use a DMM across the two large pins. If you want to measure current, that is a bit more tricky. To measure current directly, the measuring device must be in series with the filament circuit, not easy to do with a DMM, as you would have to disconnect something and put the DMM in series with the filament circuit. To measure current indirectly, you would have to measure the voltage drop across a known resistance in the filament circuit. If it is a passive, unregulated filament supply, there may be a resistor in series you can measure the voltage drop across, you then use the resistance and measured voltage to calculate the current by Ohm's Law.

I would only mess around inside the amp if you are confident in doing so, keep in mind one of those 300B pins has 4-500V on it, so alligator clips are a must for measuring with the amplifier turned on, having two hands inside the amp holding probes on the filament pins is a good way to get a nasty shock! Or inadvertently cause a short if your hand slips.

 

[gibosi]

FYI... For those of us who live in the US and try to purchase tubes from vendors located in Germany.

I just won an auction for a tube located in Germany, but the vendor sent me the following message today:

Shipping from Germany is currently not possible.

The Post (Deutsche Post Brief International) writes:
Current information about the Corona virus:
Due to the increasing spread of the Corona virus and the associated derivation or delivery restrictions,
delivery to this destination is currently not possible.

What do we want to do?
Cancel purchase and get your money back?
Keep until the "spook" is over and then send off?

I'm not sure what I should do as I'm not at all confident that the situation is going to significantly improve anytime soon, perhaps not until next year...

 

[L0rdGwyn]

I received the same type of information on a pair of EL11 I had won from a German seller. Unfortunately, the seller gave me no options, they simply cancelled my order! I have been able to get shipments from the UK via Royal Mail and Japan via FedEx, not sure if the same situation is affecting shipping from European countries other than Germany.

 

[Zachik]

FYI... For those of us who live in the US and try to purchase tubes from vendors located in Germany.

I just won an auction for a tube located in Germany, but the vendor sent me the following message today:

Shipping from Germany is currently not possible.

The Post (Deutsche Post Brief International) writes:
Current information about the Corona virus:
Due to the increasing spread of the Corona virus and the associated derivation or delivery restrictions,
delivery to this destination is currently not possible.

What do we want to do?
Cancel purchase and get your money back?
Keep until the "spook" is over and then send off?

I'm not sure what I should do as I'm not at all confident that the situation is going to significantly improve anytime soon, perhaps not until next year...

DHL from Europe worked great for me twice in the last couple months. Neither was from Germany, but still from the EU...
More expensive, unfortunately, but arrived very fast and it just worked!