[Johnnysound]

I'm thinking to have one of my EL12 Spez tubes repaired, because for me it may still be my all time best performing tube, even with the EL38's. The top connector broke off when packing it last year, fortunately however leaving a usable wire poking out. I want to just solder the top pin directly to the top cap wire of Xuling's adapter (without the top caps). But what would one recommend in terms of solidyfing this very fragile top wire from breaking off if bumped? I thought maybe a nice lump of hot glue over the whole thing hold it in place, but I would question whether the tube's heat would melt it back off.
Thanx

Solder the wires using the ceramic top caps as protectors of the soldered joint, filling them with epoxy...it will also glue the caps to the top of the tubes.

 

[DecentLevi]

Thanks much Johnny, I may consider that but I wanted to eliminate the extra signal path of the cap itself for possibly a more direct connection

 

[teknorob23]

Hi @DecentLevi, and, as always, no guarantees LOL !! (see next one)



Hi, @teknorob23 and congrats on those “US Army” 7N7s...being Sylvanias they look identical to my “US Navy” ones, it is quite rare to find them NOS and boxed, indeed !! They do need a good run in to sound best, and I have found that this particular old tubes also need at least half an hour (or maybe more) of warming up to reach peak performance.

In my lot of 7N7s I prefer the sound of the “long bottles” over the short ones. Among them, brands like National Union and Lansdale also sounded quite good and very similar (the latter may be in fact a rebranded Sylvania), albeit I ended preferring the “dark glass military” ones for their smoothness and clarity, and specially for their “control” of the EL38s...there is synergy here and I found them one of the best drivers for the 38s...in my system of course, and I reckon that I use Euforia mostly as preamp...with another four EL38s downstream in the power amp.

Thank you this is all good to know and yes there was definitely an improvement after a days warm up, but I appreciate there’s probably more to come. Early thoughts are they dont have the supernatural depth of the el11, but everything about the presentation is very natural and "right" sounding. Bass goes very deep but its clean and nicely layered and there's plenty of snap in the treble. I'm using the euforia 99% as HP amp, running out of the Hugo2 into Focal Stellia. And i'm about 150 hrs in to running in a new DIY HP cable made of the angel hair that is Neotech's Silver/ Gold UP OCC wire, which is fortunately paying back is exorbitant price tag with astonishing levels of detail retrieval and added depth (this depth has to be heard, i almost thought something was broken at first). The only downside so far if you can call it that, is its almost brutal levels of clarity detail unsurprisingly at the top end, which EL11 were walking a tight rope with some complicated electronica, to being on the verge of too much. The 7N7's have smoothed out things out at the top, but without any apparent loss of sparkle or micro details and seem to be going toe to toe with the Valvos in terms of bass weight and depth. They may not have the out and out "look-at-me" wow factor of the El11 but they have something that makes me want just play one more album,,, and i really should be getting on with some work now

Looking like a bargain $31 dollars + shipping for the pair and heres a pic of the boxes, thanks again for the heads up much appreciated

 

[hypnos1]

Thank you this is all good to know and yes there was definitely an improvement after a days warm up, but I appreciate there’s probably more to come. Early thoughts are they dont have the supernatural depth of the el11, but everything about the presentation is very natural and "right" sounding. Bass goes very deep but its clean and nicely layered and there's plenty of snap in the treble. I'm using the euforia 99% as HP amp, running out of the Hugo2 into Focal Stellia. And i'm about 150 hrs in to running in a new DIY HP cable made of the angel hair that is Neotech's Silver/ Gold UP OCC wire, which is fortunately paying back is exorbitant price tag with astonishing levels of detail retrieval and added depth (this depth has to be heard, i almost thought something was broken at first). The only downside so far if you can call it that, is its almost brutal levels of clarity detail unsurprisingly at the top end, which EL11 were walking a tight rope with some complicated electronica, to being on the verge of too much. The 7N7's have smoothed out things out at the top, but without any apparent loss of sparkle or micro details and seem to be going toe to toe with the Valvos in terms of bass weight and depth. They may not have the out and out "look-at-me" wow factor of the El11 but they have something that makes me want just play one more album,,, and i really should be getting on with some work now

Looking like a bargain $31 dollars + shipping for the pair and heres a pic of the boxes, thanks again for the heads up much appreciated

Good to hear your hp cable using that wonderful Neotech UP-OCC silver with added gold wire is proving worth its cost (despite those tiny wires making stripping/soldering a bit of a nightmare lol! ). I dread to think how much such an animal would cost commercially - if available anyway, which I haven't yet seen anywhere!...WELL DONE...

It certainly worked wonders for my friend Olli's HD800s (v1), and his friend in Germany won't now use anything else...(but neither is short of a penny or two!!). Even in my short length of coax digital cable, mixed with UP-OCC silver and copper wires, I could notice improvement. Was tempted to add some to my already 12x UP-OCC-wired hp cable, but fortunately, the EL39s bring enough extra to the table that I can save my wallet from melt-down...for now, at least ...

And those 7N7s are indeed extremely good...especially at that price! Better value-for-money than any 6SN7 IMHO...ENJOY!...CJ

 

[hypnos1]

Well guys, the EL38/39 plot thickens.

As I've suspected for a while now, I'm pretty convinced that there were strange goings-on at the French factories way back then, regarding production of the EL38 and EL39 tubes.

As mentioned previously, the RT labelled 38 is totally identical in construction to the 39, apart from having the shorter base. Soundwise, they are also identical (to my ears). And now I find that a Mazda (France, obviously) branded EL38 (also under the Philips umbrella?) is also matching the 39's performance, even though of slightly different construction - different getter shape(s); no silver banding; different top to the heater...but still with ceramic post insulators and gold signal grid wires. So this Mazda EL38 is another worth keeping an eye out for...an eagle eye, should I say!! ...(shown in this photo - the righthand power, still in its testing adapter, so should sound even better with the full surgery treatment lol!).



This combo of Philips EL39 and Mazda EL38 sounds every bit as good as 2x EL39s...amazing...but strange!

Now then, for those awaiting their EL39s from ampliatubes...I was a little surprised to see that some have a much lighter internal coating than others (as with the EL37), and my particular RTs have dual rectangular 'halo' getters, as opposed to other Philips/Dario branded tubes with inverted 'pan' type ones. But whatever, they all sound equally magnificent, so no worries whichever your own tubes possess lol! ...(A photo of said RT 39) :





Hopefully some of you should soon be able to judge this tube for yourselves...and please remember the (obligatory!! ) advice I mentioned recently as the first things to do before putting them anywhere near your amp...CHEERS!...CJ

 

[DecentLevi]

H1 (Colin) that obligatory step would be to superglue to top cap on just in case, right?
... reinforce it with superglue rather than attempting to nudge it first to glue underneath it.

Also I realized the reason I was never overtly impressed with my Tung Sol 5998's may have been because mine have the silver top instead of clear top.

 

[barontan2418]

Hi H1. This is how I have wired EL39's and I'm not getting any sound in the headphones. Is the above correct and is their anything else I should have done?

 

[Scutey]

Hi H1. This is how I have wired EL39's and I'm not getting any sound in the headphones. Is the above correct and is their anything else I should have done?

Hi bt, your EL39's have been delivered?.

 

[barontan2418]

Hi bt, your EL39's have been delivered?.

Yes but not yet working?

 

[ZRW0]

Hi H1. This is how I have wired EL39's and I'm not getting any sound in the headphones. Is the above correct and is their anything else I should have done?

Just received mine, and same issue here.
Also the EL38 adapters from Mrs X have their anode wires a bit too short for the EL39's height... and I really don't like pulling on those wires, and see them tighten and pulling on the anodes of the tubes...
Is the H1 trick working on Mrs X's adapters ?

 

[connieflyer]

Do if you look at this page you will see they are compared to chrome top, same as https://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_5998.html these are the same as what I have, and they are great tubes

 

[ZRW0]

Do if you look at this page you will see they are compared to chrome top, same as https://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_5998.html these are the same as what I have, and they are great tubes

Hi CF, DL,

Yes I agree with you CF, 5998 Chrome-tops are great tubes as well.

I'm the happy owner of WE-421A, TS-5998-ChromeTop, and CV2523.
I bought the WE-421A used, the others as NOS.

At first the 421A were far ahead all the other power tubes I had.
When I first tried the 5998 Chrome-top, I found them just "meh".

As my 421A were aging, I started to use the 5998 more and more, and actually found they started revealing their potential after hours and hours of burn-in.
They are now close to the performance of my 421As , yet a bit less holographic (unfortunately, one of my 421A has started to cough a bit when hot, some I'm using them less and less).

Regarding the CV2523, although I agree with H1 regarding the build quality of this tube, even after hours of burn-in, I never found they sounded as good as the 421A or as the 5998-Chrome-top.
To me they are just better than a good pair of 6080 or 7236, but not by that much. Given the price of 6080s or 7236s, the price of CV2523 isn't justified at all to me.

Cheers,

Erwan.

 

[hypnos1]

Hi H1. This is how I have wired EL39's and I'm not getting any sound in the headphones. Is the above correct and is their anything else I should have done?

Hi bt.

Looks like you've done the correct wire mod, so it should be OK. Do the heaters light up? And do the pins manage to go well down in the socket? If not, this would also stretch the anode wire a bit, especially as the 39's base is larger than the 38's. And pins are clean, of course?

And now I see you find the same thing @ZRW0 ...this is beginning to have me wondering just how Mrsx has configured her adapters!! I shall have a go at trying to replicate what they might have done and find a solution, as well as ask them to send me info on their layout. So it might be best to wait until I find out what's happening here...CJ

 

[ZRW0]

Hi bt.

Looks like you've done the correct wire mod, so it should be OK. Do the heaters light up? And do the pins manage to go well down in the socket? If not, this would also stretch the anode wire a bit, especially as the 39's base is larger than the 38's. And pins are clean, of course?

And now I see you find the same thing @ZRW0 ...this is beginning to have me wondering just how Mrsx has configured her adapters!! I shall have a go at trying to replicate what they might have done and find a solution, as well as ask them to send me info on their layout. So it might be best to wait until I find out what's happening here...CJ

Did the same as you recommenced and as BT did. On my side, heaters light up, yes.

BTW, who was in contact with Mrs X ?
Given the current issue and the very tight/short anode wire of the EL38 adapters for the EL39 tubes, for the ones not comfortable with soldering and doings adapters by themselves (like me), maybe it'd be better to ask Mrs X to build new adapters dedicated to EL39s...

 

[ZRW0]

This issue of not working/emitting-any-sound apart, EL39s combined with black/dark-grey drivers as well give a very nice look to the Euforia.

(Note the anode caps being pulled from behind with MrsX adapters)