[Dogmatrix]

I have just received my first pair of TungSol 5998. Please excuse the noob question however they make a lot of noise if I tilt them up and down and move them around in my hand. I approached the seller regarding this and was told it is normal for the 5998. One tube is significantly noisier than the other. Do other 5998 owners experience this same behaviour? I have not put them in the amp yet for fear of damaging something.

Thanks in advance.

Could be small pieces of glass from the manufacturing process if so its not a problem in use
Could be the heater elements , heaters have something of a reputation for arcing in the 5998 some in our community will not use them for that reason
Not to say that if they rattle they will definitely arc , they probably wont
If you have an OTL it is safe to run with no headphone attached , transformer coupled amps not so much I use a pair of $10 cans for this
Best practice with all new tubes is to switch on without headphones attached and be ready to switch off if anything dramatic happens , if they survive the first five minutes they are likely fine
Your amp will likely survive an arc but headphone drivers often don't

 

[plb0202]

Could be small pieces of glass from the manufacturing process if so its not a problem in use
Could be the heater elements , heaters have something of a reputation for arcing in the 5998 some in our community will not use them for that reason
Not to say that if they rattle they will definitely arc , they probably wont
If you have an OTL it is safe to run with no headphone attached , transformer coupled amps not so much I use a pair of $10 cans for this
Best practice with all new tubes is to switch on without headphones attached and be ready to switch off if anything dramatic happens , if they survive the first five minutes they are likely fine
Your amp will likely survive an arc but headphone drivers often don't

Thank you @Dogmatrix The Amp is a WA22 which I believe is transformer coupled. Time to find some cheap and indestructible head phones. I don’t see anything moving around in the tube itself. If anything it seems to be in the bottom/base of the tube and not visible.

 

[maxpudding]

I have just received my first pair of TungSol 5998. Please excuse the noob question however they make a lot of noise if I tilt them up and down and move them around in my hand. I approached the seller regarding this and was told it is normal for the 5998. One tube is significantly noisier than the other. Do other 5998 owners experience this same behaviour? I have not put them in the amp yet for fear of damaging something.

Thanks in advance.

I was told by a reputable tube seller that the glasses are the byproduct of the 5998 manufacturing process. I have two 5998s that have small glass particles inside them, but they sound clean and there are no noises. Probably you need to cook them a bit more in the amp.

 

[plb0202]

I was told by a reputable tube seller that the glasses are the byproduct of the 5998 manufacturing process. I have two 5998s that have small glass particles inside them, but they sound clean and there are no noises. Probably you need to cook them a bit more in the amp.

Thanks @maxpudding The tubes are yet to be used. After trying a few rectifiers and blowing fuses I am yet to turn on the amp without thinking something is going to go bang! Hopefully this will pass

Are the pieces of glass visible in your 5998 tubes?

 

[maxpudding]

Thanks @maxpudding The tubes are yet to be used. After trying a few rectifiers and blowing fuses I am yet to turn on the amp without thinking something is going to go bang! Hopefully this will pass

Are the pieces of glass visible in your 5998 tubes?

The glass particles are not visible, but you can clearly hear them

 

[CADCAM]

Quick question for the tube Jedi out there. I have a nice small collection of 6080\6AS7G tubes for my Monoprice Monolith headphone amp. It's the large monolithic slab design no longer available
https://qa2.monoprice.com/product?p_id=29511
I really enjoy the amp and think it sounds very good but some tubes make a static\distortion sound almost like an old tube radio when in between tuning stations, like an airy puff sound. I believe it to be the power tube as I haven't switched out driver tubes lately. Also if I touch the top of the amp it seems to change\increase\decrease the sounds and if I unplug then plug in my headphones sometimes it seems to go away. I have two Sylvania GB 6080's one is dead silent and one makes these sounds, both sound excellent (aside from the extraneous sounds from the noisy one) All three of my CEI tubes (which sound great) make these sounds to some extent. Sometimes it's so slight you only hear it in between tracks.
Could this be a grounding problem? Bad tubes? Any ideas\advice? Thanks in advance.

 

[bcowen]

Quick question for the tube Jedi out there. I have a nice small collection of 6080\6AS7G tubes for my Monoprice Monolith headphone amp. It's the large monolithic slab design no longer available
https://qa2.monoprice.com/product?p_id=29511
I really enjoy the amp and think it sounds very good but some tubes make a static\distortion sound almost like an old tube radio when in between tuning stations, like an airy puff sound. I believe it to be the power tube as I haven't switched out driver tubes lately. Also if I touch the top of the amp it seems to change\increase\decrease the sounds and if I unplug then plug in my headphones sometimes it seems to go away. I have two Sylvania GB 6080's one is dead silent and one makes these sounds, both sound excellent (aside from the extraneous sounds from the noisy one) All three of my CEI tubes (which sound great) make these sounds to some extent. Sometimes it's so slight you only hear it in between tracks.
Could this be a grounding problem? Bad tubes? Any ideas\advice? Thanks in advance.

My first suggestion would be to clean the tube pins and the tube socket contacts. May fix the issue, may not, but either way you'll have clean contacts afterwards which is never a bad thing. Second suggestion would be to reflow the solder in the pins of the offending tube. While most of the degraded solder issues I've personally run into have been with Russian tubes and Tung Sols, I've had one Sylvania with sporadic noise gremlins that was healed with a quick resolder.

 

[lumdicks]

Merry Christmas to all and I really enjoy the smoothness and dynamics of the GEC 6AS7G, driven by Marconi B65 and powered by GEC U52 in my WA22. The GEC MOV combo simply ticks all my boxes of preference.

 

[whirlwind]

Merry Christmas to all and I really enjoy the smoothness and dynamics of the GEC 6AS7G, driven by Marconi B65 and powered by GEC U52 in my WA22. The GEC MOV combo simply ticks all my boxes of preference.

Those are all very high quality of tubes....some of the best for sure.

 

[lumdicks]

Those are all very high quality of tubes....some of the best for sure.

Yes the combo works really great for vocal and acoustic, but may be lacking the final bit of dynamics when compared to below:

WE421A driven by Mullard ECC32, powered by WE274A. Sonically the response is excellent along all frequency, with crazy amount of details and extension of low and high.

I enjoy tube rolling much and WA22 is very sensitive to tube change. I have also tried below 'all metal base' combo and it sounds most balanced with pleasant tonality.

Sylvania 7236 / GEC 6080 driven by B65 and powered by Mullard GZ34 Metal Base.

 

[gibosi]

I have also tried below 'all metal base' combo and it sounds most balanced with pleasant tonality.

Inspired by lumdicks all metal roll, I thought I would do something similar. Initially, I wanted to use some metal-base EL41s, but the adapter covered up the bases, ruining the visual effect. But still, these are cool looking tubes:



So instead, a Philips 5AR4, a Melz 1578, and a pair of Mullard 6080:



But that looks really blah... so added a little Google Night Sight magic.



And yes, it sounds great. The sonic signature of the Melz is very similar to Telefunken, and the bass of the Mullard complements the treble of the Melz very nicely. And then the Philips 5AR4 adds in that romantic lush Holland midrange.

 

[bcowen]

Inspired by lumdicks all metal roll, I thought I would do something similar. Initially, I wanted to use some metal-base EL41s, but the adapter covered up the bases, ruining the visual effect. But still, these are cool looking tubes:



So instead, a Philips 5AR4, a Melz 1578, and a pair of Mullard 6080:



But that looks really blah... so added a little Google Night Sight magic.



And yes, it sounds great. The sonic signature of the Melz is very similar to Telefunken, and the bass of the Mullard complements the treble of the Melz very nicely. And then the Philips 5AR4 adds in that romantic lush Holland midrange.

Awesome pic! Love how you can see the filament glow through the hole-y plates in the 1578.

Here's a TungSol 5998 trying to out-do the Melz:

 

[lumdicks]

Inspired by lumdicks all metal roll, I thought I would do something similar. Initially, I wanted to use some metal-base EL41s, but the adapter covered up the bases, ruining the visual effect. But still, these are cool looking tubes:



So instead, a Philips 5AR4, a Melz 1578, and a pair of Mullard 6080:



But that looks really blah... so added a little Google Night Sight magic.



And yes, it sounds great. The sonic signature of the Melz is very similar to Telefunken, and the bass of the Mullard complements the treble of the Melz very nicely. And then the Philips 5AR4 adds in that romantic lush Holland midrange.

It is really cool!

 

[thecrow]

E-mail Martin and ask him if he has specifically GEC 6AS7Gs. I bought a couple from him earlier this year. It's not cheap and you have to figure in the pain of customs post-Brexit (not only 17% VAT, but also processing costs and in some cases double-VAT because... the insanity of the system). But I think it's a far safer bet than getting something off eBay.

May i ask who Martin is?

 

[bcowen]

May i ask who Martin is?

The dude at Billington Exports in the UK.