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RE: You do understand my point, correct?

Posted by Mechans (A) on February 21, 2016 at 12:20:58

In Reply to: You do understand my point, correct? posted by Chip647 on February 19, 2016 at 21:04:38:

I sure hope he gets it. The big problem however is a persistent issue with quality assurance. Even a simple early 60s 6SN7GTB from any US manufacturer if it is IN good shape (important) , will in my view, and yours, simply blow the basic current production tubes out of the water.

I have spent a lot of time and treasure collecting the better 6SN7s (IMHO of course). As for the Bad Boy, if you let me brag a bit about them-, There was a 6SN7 expert who used spend time on this forum, he also bought and sold, the best of the best. His tag was Len, he also produced a picture that looks a great deal like the one used in this thread. He decided to get out of the tube world for now and in his final sell off,nsold me a pair of NOS Bad Boys, that he claimed were in the original case of tubes that the gave that 6SN7 their name. He was an Australian and called them those Bad Boys in some long lost article. I regret that I can't think of his name.
That pair is of course silly rare, (no not expensive) but you can find them pretty easily. You just have to pray that they weren't abused and are still singing sweetly. I have really found that condition is truly the single most important issue in buying old stock tubes.
I wanted to hear all the better 6SN7s. For instance, I went after Tung Sol Round Plates,which many think is nonpareil simply the best. I bought about 10-12 or so tubes in pairs and singles etc -note all tested well! I did not want to pay absurd prices but it may have been a better strategy, only about 4 of them sounded really good, none great, forget mind blowing. The remaining tubes play OK but that's all no better than an ordinary used GTB.
I have encountered this problem many times, before and since with other tubes, the quality is just so inconsistent it argues well for manufacturers who use ordinary sounding tubes, because at least they can count on what they'll get.

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