[KingStyles]

I wish KR audio would make a new production 6sn7. The px4 I have are great and I heard a lot of there tubes are holding there own against nos tubes. I think there probably isnt enough profit margin to be messing with the smaller tubes. It was standard to handmake tubes back in the day but now to do it by hand to get the same quality would put the tube out of reach. Who here would pay $200 - $400 for a matched set of new production 6sn7 tubes that sound great?

 

[Wedge]

I would... I already bought the Shuguang Treasures just to see how they were for myself.

 

[9pintube]

Quote:

I agree the NOS do sound better.  I guess I was just wondering what the impressions were on the new productions, I see some people really hate the EH ones, was wondering how people felt about the Tung-Sol ones.  This line of questions is probably semi moot anyways since I just ordered a pair of Tung-Sol Round Plate Black Glass, Sylvania Metal Base, Chelmer ECC32, RCA VT231 Smoke Glass, and Sylvania VT-231, as well as Shuguang Treasures, hehe.  I suppose I have Skylab to thank for my empty bank account as I probably would have never bought any of them if I hadn't been pointed to a good place to buy them.  I ordered a WA-5 and had the Shuguangs on the order already, but since I like NOS more than new production in general I figured why not do a little rolling.  I went with EMLs for the 300Bs though cause I'm just way to afraid to pay for NOS Western Electric 300Bs (upwards of 1-2K per tube is a little nuts for me).  I am still young and don't make that much money.

Wedge, It sounds like you've made some nice purchases and have started a great collection of the "6SN7" tubes for your WA-5..That's great ! One brand of 300 B tubes that I really liked in my Mid-range Mono Blocks (before I got my Quad set of WE's) were the JJ 300 B tubes..... They were very smooth sounding and I had no problems at all with them for yrs.. Now they are my back up 300B's.......They weren't that much money "NEW"! Also.....I was given the Electro Harmonics,300B's, but the sound and reliability sucked.......  Some advice for you or anyone else who are just now buying TUBES, Don't sell them, ever,unless you need a Kidney!      I wouldn't even think about paying those "STUPID MONEY" prices for the Older Etched WE300B tubes.....I'd look for the ones  made in the 90's or the last batches that came/come in the wooden boxes..... I paid $525.00 for a Quad set "new" back in the day......I've seen them for around $1000/ or higher...... IMO, the next thing you should start hunting for is a nice Tube Caddy...I found mine for $35 bucks.. 

 

 

[Wedge]

Quote:

Quote:
Wedge, It sounds like you've made some nice purchases and have started a great collection of the "6SN7" tubes for your WA-5..That's great ! One brand of 300 B tubes that I really liked in my Mid-range Mono Blocks (before I got my Quad set of WE's) were the JJ 300 B tubes..... They were very smooth sounding and I had no problems at all with them for yrs.. Now they are my back up 300B's.......They weren't that much money "NEW"! Also.....I was given the Electro Harmonics,300B's, but the sound and reliability sucked.......  Some advice for you or anyone else who are just now buying TUBES, Don't sell them, ever,unless you need a Kidney!      I wouldn't even think about paying those "STUPID MONEY" prices for the Older Etched WE300B tubes.....I'd look for the ones  made in the 90's or the last batches that came/come in the wooden boxes..... I paid $525.00 for a Quad set "new" back in the day......I've seen them for around $1000/ or higher...... IMO, the next thing you should start hunting for is a nice Tube Caddy...I found mine for $35 bucks.. 

 

Thank you, 9 Pin Tube.  I am sort of rebuilding my tube collection.  I have lots of friends at work that have old tubes too so I've been able to gleen a few tubes off of them.  I was shocked to find out how much some of these tubes were "apparently worth".  I previously had one of those tube cubes from Tube Depot, which works well enough for me.  I know its not the same as the ones from the old days.  I would love to have a tube tester but, I'm not sure I want to spend the money right now.  Right now I'd like to buy a few more pieces of audio gear.  I would love to see an amplifier which uses both 6SN7s and KT66s or 88s.  I'm considering my next piece of audio equipment for my office at work.  I am thinking either an APEX Pinnacle/Volcano or Woo-Audio WA-22.  I've seen a lot of discussion on here regarding different tubes, I suppose we haven't gotten around to the why the addiction to 6SN7s.
 
I like the 6SN7s for a number of reasons one of which is I like the construction of them.  Most preamp/drive type tubes are smaller 9 PIN types.  I like to have a solid base.  I think a lot of the 6SN7 have been able to hold up over years because they were built ruggedized for military use (in the days they when they had requirements for ultra long shelf life).  I also think that they sound really great.  I started a project sometime ago to build a tube/MOSFET hybrid amplifier.  I used 6SN7 for the drive tubes.  I was looking at older style TO-3 packaged FETs for the output stage, never finished, got as far as breadboarding the drive stage and the power supply for the tube section.  I got to listen to it, and I really thought it sounded phenomenal, but maybe I'm partial to my own work, someday I'll get around to it.
 
I thought I would include a picture of the breadboard, hehe.  New production Tung-Sol's in case something went terribly wrong didn't want to waste a perfectly good pair of tubes NOS.  It is actually all beat up now because I had buried it away, some reassembly will be necessary.
 

 

[rosgr63]

A tube tester is a very valuable tool.
I have found that the Tungsol re issues have unbalanced sections and show leakage above 1.25 Meg.

 

[Skylab]

It's a travesty that a new production tube would get sold with those problems. I can forgive a little mismatch in 60-70 year old tubes, but not in current production ones.

 

[rosgr63]

Rob you'll be surprised how many re issues show this kind of leakage!
I was alerted by my trusted tube supplier and it is an issue with some of them.
Unfortunately many testers based on the Hickok circuit cannot pick it up.
Old production tubes are not so prone to this kind of leakage.

 

[Wedge]

Most manufacturers these days will allow that to happen and still ship it out since it is not within intended operating range.

 

[Xcalibur255]

 
Quote:

I am an electrical engineer by profession and I guess I have some thoughts about developing re-issues of old devices.  It is an art to reverse engineer someone else's work.  The world is programmed in general to believe that if you write a specification, any design that meets the specification will work the same in the same application, but it really just isn't reality.  So you can poke and prod the device, but sometimes you just can't recreate it perfectly.  Also the other challenge is when you say well lets get better distortion characteristics, thats when you start to get to mucking with the "sound" that the particular design had.  With this said I have seen a number of very good technologies die along with those who mastered them and decided that they wanted to keep the competitive edge for themselves.
 
Most people that I know believe that people like the sound of tubes better than solid state because of their distortion characteristics.  Tubes generally have more emphasis on second order harmonic as opposed to a BJT which might have more third order content than a tube would.  In general people find even order harmonics more pleasant to listen to, is what I have been told.  I think that the new 6SN7 designers want to do what we want them to do, I believe that they fail because they try to make improvements where they figure is available with new technology and/or because its simply better design practice, and thats where they stray away in many cases far away from what they originally set out to do.

This is a very good point, but I suppose what I was trying to express isn't that they should reverse engineer the old tubes.  Considering changes in materials used and construction that probably isn't even practical.  What I mean is they should use the *sound* of the best NOS tubes as a benchmark when developing their products.  That new NOS tubes sound more "solid state" than NOS ones do probably isn't an accident.  These companies probably see solid state amplification devices as their primary competition and are trying to mimick the low distortion and fast response of that technology in vacuum tubes, all the while losing sight of why people love tubes in the first place.

 

[Wedge]

Quote:

 

This is a very good point, but I suppose what I was trying to express isn't that they should reverse engineer the old tubes.  Considering changes in materials used and construction that probably isn't even practical.  What I mean is they should use the *sound* of the best NOS tubes as a benchmark when developing their products.  That new NOS tubes sound more "solid state" than NOS ones do probably isn't an accident.  These companies probably see solid state amplification devices as their primary competition and are trying to mimick the low distortion and fast response of that technology in vacuum tubes, all the while losing sight of why people love tubes in the first place.

 
Agreed.  Although not impractical to do it the same way as done before, not cost effective, most development in the world has lost sight of the passion for something and go for what will make the most amount of money.  Markets and profits run everything these days.  Guys like Jack Wu or Ray Samuels for example, while I'm sure they aren't homeless, they probably aren't swimming in money either.  They do what they do because they love it, but probably not making as much money as a company who will compromise their quality for an increased market share.  I became an electrical engineer because of Hi-Fi audio gear, so for me its worth it, plus I'm a single guy so I don't have family expenditures.  A good friend of mine and I always talk about starting a a little boutique amplifier company after he retires, just cause it would be lots of fun, and something we love.
 

 

[Wedge]

Look what came in the mail!
 

 
I know they aren't the Mullards, but I couldn't find any Mullards, so these will have to do.

 

[Skylab]

Very nice!  I have a pair of those Chelmers - they sound terrific.  Im almost 100% sure they are just rebranded Mullards anyway.

 

[Wedge]

What are everyone's thoughts on Cryo treating tubes?  I bought the Kuhl Tubes, because well the pair they had on Tube World looked better and it was not too much more money.

 

[KingStyles]

I just brought a cryoed ecc35 a couple of weeks ago. I am trying to get a uncryoed one so I can compare them.

 

[Wedge]

Yeah I figured that the Chelmers are just rebranded Mullards.  I was trying to look for the Marconi Osram B65s but 1500 a pair is kind of out of my league at the moment, I feel like my money would be best spent elsewhere like expanding my amp and headphone collection.  I really was never a huge head phone person until recently, I always spent my money on home systems, but I guess I caught the bug.