[Wes S]

My friend is saying it has the same pin out, but is not electrically the same as a 6J5!?

I believe they are close enough to not worry about it, as that's what I have taken away from all the people using them interchangeably in this thread for years.

This site says they are slightly different, but basically a direct replacement.

http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaa0060.htm

 

[JTbbb]

http://www.r-type.org/exhib/aaa0060.htm

Well that certainly answers that. Thank you

 

[bcowen]

Probably the worst 6J5 ever produced. I know I said before there are no bad tubes in the 6C5/6J5/6L5/6P5 clan. Once again ECG Philli proves me wrong.

A 6SN7, a really bad one with one section deactivated. Would sound better with both sections defeated.

But still... buy them! There's no reason not to vastly overpay (> 10 cents ea), because sonic enjoyment isn't everything. Sometimes you might want to not listen to anything. And these are among my 1st picks when I don't want to listen to anything.

ROFL!!!!!!!

I think you've been much too kind in your sonic assessment though.

 

[Isaacc7]

Hey!
I know it’s getting late but can anyone offer opinions on these?

As others have said, these are dreadful. I am firmly in the camp that every tube can be useful in combination with another if you're willing to find the match. Every tube but this one. Stay away! Same goes for the similarly aged 6sn7. Dreadful.

 

[jonathan c]

Hey!
I know it’s getting late but can anyone offer opinions on these?

Extra Crappy Grade !! ... "Run Forrest Designfx, run!"

 

[Designsfx]

Probably the worst 6J5 ever produced. I know I said before there are no bad tubes in the 6C5/6J5/6L5/6P5 clan. Once again ECG Philli proves me wrong.

A 6SN7, a really bad one with one section deactivated. Would sound better with both sections defeated.

But still... buy them! There's no reason not to vastly overpay (> 10 cents ea), because sonic enjoyment isn't everything. Sometimes you might want to not listen to anything. And these are among my 1st picks when I don't want to listen to anything.

Ha! Amazing response to this one- and consistent across the board. A really bad 6SN7 with one section deactivated says it all. Repurpose junk on hand to become another offering for the consumer masses. I’m sure some bean counter had an excellent Christmas after proposing that idea!

 

[bcowen]

Ha! Amazing response to this one- and consistent across the board. A really bad 6SN7 with one section deactivated says it all. Repurpose junk on hand to become another offering for the consumer masses. I’m sure some bean counter had an excellent Christmas after proposing that idea!

And just when you think it can't possibly get worse, there's the Philips ECG 5814 (12AU7 variant). Whoever is responsible for that abomination should be in prison.

 

[JTbbb]

And just when you think it can't possibly get worse, there's the Philips ECG 5814 (12AU7 variant). Whoever is responsible for that abomination should be in prison.

Don’t forget though chaps, I think I am correct in saying these tubes weren’t “developed” for our sensitive ears.

 

[CAJames]

And just when you think it can't possibly get worse, there's the Philips ECG 5814 (12AU7 variant). Whoever is responsible for that abomination should be in prison.

I will put my ECG 6922s against anyone for either overall horribleness or any specific horrible quality of your choosing.

That said, they may work fine in the oscilloscopes or for whatever they were sourced.

Just not audio. Please.

 

[Isaacc7]

Ha! Amazing response to this one- and consistent across the board. A really bad 6SN7 with one section deactivated says it all. Repurpose junk on hand to become another offering for the consumer masses. I’m sure some bean counter had an excellent Christmas after proposing that idea!

To be fair, these were clearly for a government contract. A classic case of close enough for government work. I don't think sound quality has ever been a design criteria for government use.

 

[bcowen]

To be fair, these were clearly for a government contract. A classic case of close enough for government work. I don't think sound quality has ever been a design criteria for government use.

For sure.

But then were tubes from the '30's - '70's ever built with sound quality as a design parameter? Or simply to work as they should electrically? We now have tubes being made with sound quality as an important (if not the most important) parameter from PSVane, LinLai, Elrog, Emission Labs, KR (until recently) and others, but did guys in the '50's tube roll? There wasn't much available until the '60's of affordable, high performance audio components for home use, so even if there had been interest in the sound quality of a tube there wouldn't have been much of anything at the hobbyist level that was revealing enough to showcase it. Did the Western Electric 300B become a legend because it was designed to sound good, or was it designed to be reliable and long-lasting and just ended up sounding good by fortuitous chance? Just ruminating....pointlessly as usual.

 

[mordy]

As I enjoy tube gear so much, I decided to go "all in" on tubes a few years ago. DACs, preamps, speaker amps and headphone amps. I have 27 tubes in the chain from DAC to speakers and 25 tubes in the chain from DAC to one of my headphone amps.

To minimize future potential problems, my most important criteria these days is that all tubes test well. I admit, I'm probably in the minority with so much tube gear. I used to be able to tell the differences with tubes more when all I had was a tube headphone amp.

I very much enjoyed the process of hunting down the rare tubes, learning about them and the manufacturer (even read a few books about GEC, Mullard and Phillips), trying different ways to clean the pins, testing the tubes in anticipation of hoping the test results would at least match what was advertised, and then finally plugging them in and (hopefully) seeing them light up, and beautiful music come through the speakers/headphones.

Can't aspire to such heights of tube perfection, but with the four tubes in my amp I am very happy!

 

[shwnwllms]

@Wes S I’m coming for you

Just scored another pair

 

[Isaacc7]

For sure.

But then were tubes from the '30's - '70's ever built with sound quality as a design parameter? Or simply to work as they should electrically? We now have tubes being made with sound quality as an important (if not the most important) parameter from PSVane, LinLai, Elrog, Emission Labs, KR (until recently) and others, but did guys in the '50's tube roll? There wasn't much available until the '60's of affordable, high performance audio components for home use, so even if there had been interest in the sound quality of a tube there wouldn't have been much of anything at the hobbyist level that was revealing enough to showcase it. Did the Western Electric 300B become a legend because it was designed to sound good, or was it designed to be reliable and long-lasting and just ended up sounding good by fortuitous chance? Just ruminating....pointlessly as usual.

This gets to the heart of the mystery of why tubes sound good. As you say, the engineers designing tubes had numbers they were going for, not something as nebulous as "sound quality." The 300b is a great example. It was designed specifically as a low distortion amplifier for compressed voices in telephone repeaters. Is low distortion the key to great sound? Debatable... In any case, when they started to use it with amplifiers for speakers it gained a warmth and midrange glow that people fell in love with. The lack of great drivers and output transformers played a very key role in that sound. As it turns out, modern amplifier design can give you a much more accurate and less distorted sound with 300b tubes. I prefer the new designs personally...

Point is, the 300b "sound" is very different depending on the application. And the same thing goes with every other tube. The only criteria that engineers used for "sound quality" was distortion and power. I've said it before, I'm convinced that the idea that different tubes sound different comes from guitar players. The classic manufacturers of hifi tube gear would be appalled at the idea of tube rolling. Certainly they would cringe at the idea of dropping in a totally different tube type like we so cavalierly do here. If you owned McIntosh, Marantz, Scott, Leak, Quad, etc. the only reason you'd change tubes would be when you wore them out. I have a strong suspicion that tube rolling only really started becoming popular when boutique tube amps and especially single ended ones came on the scene in the 90s.

I also don't think that speakers/heaphones were good enough back in the day to pick up on a lot of the stuff we talk about here. Sure, if you had the original Quad electrostatic speakers you could but approximately nobody owned those. Plus, Peter Walker would come over and beat you personally if you used anything other than the KT66 his amps were designed for. Headphones have dramatically changed for the better over the last 20 years.

So yeah, not only were engineers not worried about sound quality of tubes themselves, but neither were amp designers and consumers until recently.

 

[shwnwllms]

Some late night tube glow for y’all