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JJ Responds To My Email!

Posted by Jim McShane (D) on February 22, 2008 at 08:23:08

I wrote JJ an email after my post about quality (below), partly out of frustration, partly out of hope I could get somebody to pay attention.

Since the emails are rather long, I'll print my first note in this post, and I'll put Tomas Jurco's reply in a second, and my reply to him in a 3rd post. I DO have Tomas' permission to publish this as long as I post all of the exchange. Fair enough! Here's my first letter (yes, I was pretty pi**ed!):

**************************************************************************

(sent to JJ info email address)

"I am a reasonably sized tube seller in the USA with a very high rating for quality and integrity. I used to sell a decent number of JJ tubes.

However, over the last 3-5 years the list of JJ products I will not carry has grown to include almost every tube you make. The ECC83 family tubes were the first to go due to 50% reject rates for noise, microphonics, or huge Gm differences between sections. Then there was the misbuilt GZ34 tubes. After that came the undersize octal pin fiasco, which caused huge problems and caused me to stop carrying the E34L and 6L6GC.

I remember when the 6L6GC had a beautifully installed red base - now it has a cheap base with the pins badly misaligned and even more poorly soldered. The top edge of the base is always damaged and nicked up. The pins are misaligned, poorly soldered, and have sharp damaging edges that tear up sockets.

Now, in my most recent shipment I rejected 66.6% of the GZ34S I received. Some had undersize pins - I thought you were supposed to have corrected that! Almost all had the bottle so crooked and tilted in the base that they are unacceptable for use where the tube is in view. Some had loose material in the envelope.

I have never seen tubes so poorly made.

I will no longer sell any JJ octal based tube. I will no longer sell any 9 pin miniatures except the 12DW7 and ECC88" (MY NOTE - and the ECC99, I overlooked it). "I am far from alone on these decisions, many US tube vendors have discontinued most or all JJ.

I have written before and never received a response, but I thought I would write one more time. If you can ever find a properly built JJ they can sound nice. But the quality is so poor that many vendors and consumers avoid them. Your quality is as bad as Ei from Nis had been just before they closed.

If you want to see how to build an octal based tube, look at the products made in the Saratov plant and imported by New Sensor. Most have a reject rate of 1% or less, compared to 50% plus from JJ. As a vendor, those are tubes I want to sell, they are trouble free.

If you can convince me that you care about quality (I really don't think you do), then I might handle the tubes again. I know from personal experience that the ISO certification is a paperwork exercise, and is not a reliable quality indicator. Honestly, if it meant anything you couldn't have achieved it.

Tesla tubes used to be some of the finest in the industry. Early JJ production was wonderful. Now however, it is mostly scrap.

I would be happy to share more information with you if you really want to improve.

Regards,

Jim McShane
Orland Park, Illinois USA
(promo section of my signature removed)

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Schiit Audio

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