[UntilThen]

  Good news, Lukasz send me a mail this afternoon
my unit will be ready 2 or 3 week of july

Great. Didn't I tell you, he'll get back to you. He has probably gone on a holiday. What gear are you using Elise with lemting? 
 
Welcome btw.

 

[connieflyer]

Congratulations lemming it won't be long now. You are in for a treat

 

[JazzVinyl]

I  have ~30 tubes from the 6N7 family. By far my favorite tubes. 

Definitely one of my favorites, too!!

 

[richdytch]

Good luck!

Thanks! The seller has kindly offered to send me a replacement tube for the one that hums. I just need to send the bad one to Canada first.

Rich

 

[Oskari]

Apologies, meant GT. Sorry for that.

Won 4 of them on auction last week for just over £36, which included postage. I didn't know they could be so expensive.

The date codes are a year ending in 2-4. I guess its 1962/4 as the box has the price in UK pre-1971 monetary units of 17/6 +PT (purchase tax, an earlier version of VAT).

They all look the same, these are the two that aren't in the picture in Elise I posted earlier, #12333, p823.

Is that 4D5 and 2E5 I see? This being Brimar, the format should be WMY. The older style box makes me think that the year might be 1955. Do you see STC, Thorn or Thorn-AEI somewhere on the box?

 

[tonyl59]

My Elise is on track for delivery in the first or second week of July. Really looking forward to it!

 

[HOWIE13]

6A6 tubes were one of my favourites in Ember. Now I'll need to find them and there's another tube to roll in Elise.
 
The Never Ending Story.

 

[HOWIE13]

Is that 4D5 and 2E5 I see? This being Brimar, the format should be WMY. The older style box makes me think that the year might be 1955. Do you see STC, Thorn or Thorn-AEI somewhere on the box?

That's interesting. I had it in my mind that the first number was the year, but you are probably correct.
No mention of any other company on the box.
 
EDIT; You are indeed correct about the Brimar date codes. My bad.
The other two I bought are also 2E5 coded.

 

[Oskari]

Go Poland!

 

[Audict123]

 A lot of posts on FDD20 and 6N7 family tubes on the last pages and rightfully so. To my ears the FDD20's are the best and they run very well with stock Russian powers. Indeed, they brings out a lot of detail in both the mids and treble but that is served on a basis with increadibly 'physical' bass. Very nice for rock too. Euphonic? Yes. Too euphonic? No, bring it on!

To answer your question one or two pages ago Howie13: yes, with a 12V supply for FDD20 you are fully equipped to work with 12SN7's too. They are electrically identical to 6SN7 except for the heater current.
 
I decided on a 'lab power supply' so I can even use 25V tubes, or 3,2V, or whatever, and tune the exact heater voltage around the recommended value. I previously reported I needed some 13.5 volts to run the FDD20, but that turns out to be an artifact. The output voltage cables supplied with my lab power supply are so thin that the resulting resistance lead to a significant voltage drop (and hot cables..) The voltage at the tube end was in fact a normal 12.5V. Replaced by thicker cables, all is normal now. When I change powers to 6AS7G or 5998, I need a bit more voltage to be fully distortion free with FDD20. So, I really like the flexibility to raise or lower the heater voltage with this kind of power supply.
 
The normal 6.3 volt tubes can also benefit from an external power supply. My Elise is very finicky with the entire class of 6N7G tubes (sometimes distortion, sometimes not), I know of several others that had problems with this class of tubes and gave up on them. But when I run them externally heated all is well and they sound fantastic. Apart from an external power supply, you need one more part to run tubes that way. Xu Ling has 'socket saver' adapters for 6SN7 with external power leads (similar to the FDD20 adapters). You can use these in combination with ANY tube (+ the regular adapter that goes with that type of course). I've been doing that for the last few days and now EVERY 6N7G I put in works. Hmmm, interesting... One more experiment: the same is true when I put one of the powers tubes in the externally heated adapter, taking load from Elises heater supply. My conclusion at the moment is therefore that in MY Elise the heater power of my Elise is challenged a bit too much with 6N7G's in (two of them draw 1,8A versus 1.2A for the stock 6SN7). I bet the same problem will arise with eg Mullard ECC31, which draws even more (1A each if I recall correctly). I don't have these thought...
 
Long again, sorry. Basically my message to Elise owners who'se amp refuses to work with 6N7G and ECC31 is: buy an external power supply + these 6SN7 socket savers with external power leads and you are good to go. In fact: one will probably do (you need to supply only one power tube or drive tube with external power and it works). If you are among the lucky ones where Elise runs them 'as is' without any tinkering : you are among the MOST Lucky ones,  others like me are the plain lucky ones

 
Howie13: if you want to buy Fivre 'horned' 6A6 (labelled ultron) NOS at a low price, have a look at my post 8238 in this thread. In fact, I have too many so you can also contact me for a pair.

 

[Oskari]

That's interesting. I had it in my mind that the first number was the year, but you are probably correct.
No mention of any other company on the box.

EDIT; You are indeed correct about the Brimar date codes. My bad.
The other two I bought are also 2E5 coded.

Philips and pals had it one way and Brimar the other way.

If you see Thorn on a Brimar box, it's 1960 or later; Thorn-AEI, 1961 or later. Before those, Brimar was a division of STC.

 

[HOWIE13]

   A lot of posts on FDD20 and 6N7 family tubes on the last pages and rightfully so. To my ears the FDD20's are the best and they run very well with stock Russian powers. Indeed, they brings out a lot of detail in both the mids and treble but that is served on a basis with increadibly 'physical' bass. Very nice for rock too. Euphonic? Yes. Too euphonic? No, bring it on!

To answer your question one or two pages ago Howie13: yes, with a 12V supply for FDD20 you are fully equipped to work with 12SN7's too. They are electrically identical to 6SN7 except for the heater current.
 
I decided on a 'lab power supply' so I can even use 25V tubes, or 3,2V, or whatever, and tune the exact heater voltage around the recommended value. I previously reported I needed some 13.5 volts to run the FDD20, but that turns out to be an artifact. The output voltage cables supplied with my lab power supply are so thin that the resulting resistance lead to a significant voltage drop (and hot cables..) The voltage at the tube end was in fact a normal 12.5V. Replaced by thicker cables, all is normal now. When I change powers to 6AS7G or 5998, I need a bit more voltage to be fully distortion free with FDD20. So, I really like the flexibility to raise or lower the heater voltage with this kind of power supply.
 
The normal 6.3 volt tubes can also benefit from an external power supply. My Elise is very finicky with the entire class of 6N7G tubes (sometimes distortion, sometimes not), I know of several others that had problems with this class of tubes and gave up on them. But when I run them externally heated all is well and they sound fantastic. Apart from an external power supply, you need one more part to run tubes that way. Xu Ling has 'socket saver' adapters for 6SN7 with external power leads (similar to the FDD20 adapters). You can use these in combination with ANY tube (+ the regular adapter that goes with that type of course). I've been doing that for the last few days and now EVERY 6N7G I put in works. Hmmm, interesting... One more experiment: the same is true when I put one of the powers tubes in the externally heated adapter, taking load from Elises heater supply. My conclusion at the moment is therefore that in MY Elise the heater power of my Elise is challenged a bit too much with 6N7G's in (two of them draw 1,8A versus 1.2A for the stock 6SN7). I bet the same problem will arise with eg Mullard ECC31, which draws even more (1A each if I recall correctly). I don't have these thought...
 
Long again, sorry. Basically my message to Elise owners who'se amp refuses to work with 6N7G and ECC31 is: buy an external power supply + these 6SN7 socket savers with external power leads and you are good to go. In fact: one will probably do (you need to supply only one power tube or drive tube with external power and it works). If you are among the lucky ones where Elise runs them 'as is' without any tinkering : you are among the MOST Lucky ones,  others like me are the plain lucky ones

 
Howie13: if you want to buy Fivre 'horned' 6A6 (labelled ultron) NOS at a low price, have a look at my post 8238 in this thread. In fact, I have too many so you can also contact me for a pair.

Thanks for all that interesting info.
So far I've only used the Brimar 6N7GT's and there's no hum. I have others on order though.
 
Those Fivre's sound good. I hope I can locate the several 6A6's I had for Ember and if I can't I'll look at your post for sure.
I had to use an earthed Faraday cage with Ember to stop the 6A6's humming. Worked very well and background was then silent.
 
Cheers.

 

[HOWIE13]

Philips and pals had it one way and Brimar the other way.

If you see Thorn on a Brimar box, it's 1960 or later; Thorn-AEI, 1961 or later. Before those, Brimar was a division of STC.

I have an ECC88 Brimar which has STC on the box. 

 

[HOWIE13]

 
Great. Didn't I tell you, he'll get back to you. He has probably gone on a holiday. What gear are you using Elise with lemting? 
 
Welcome btw.

That's the trouble with holidays-loads of emails to answer when you get home.

 

[Oskari]

Go Poland!

Crap.