|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
69.248.131.226
In Reply to: RE: Tungsol 6550 - two dark plates or a black & a grey one ? posted by highfell on September 26, 2014 at 14:32:42
This pair of tubes in your photographs are unusual. First of all, Tung-Sol, as far as I know, made the black plate version from 1955 to 1960 and then production of the solid grey plates commenced through 1963. Second, I've never seen Tung-Sol date codes like the ones you've submitted. Tung-Sol branded tubes always start with their manufacturer prefix 322, followed by the year and week of production. Even their mixed alphanumeric coded tubes start with 322.
They certainly appear genuine and the top-getter only tube would have to be a black plate. But again, I've only seen black plate top getter Tung-Sols with dates ranging from 1955 to 1958.
The picture above shows these tubes with dates of 31st week of 1955, 12th week of 1956, 21st week of 1957 and 12th week of 1958.
Anyway, the most important part is how do you think they sound?
Joe
Follow Ups:
You had me worried but having done some more research - I saw a 4 digit date code on a Tung Sol Valve on page 4 of the old Tube Valley Magazine issue 19. This has the letters JAN - 6559 on top and 6528 underneath.
This also ties in with this comment from http://www.dannychesnut.com/Music/Hammond/HammondLeslieIdentifiers.htm
"Tung-Sol 6550 tubes have the following format: XXXYYWW, where XXX is the EIA manufacturer code, YY is the last two digits of the year and WW is the number of the week in that year. 3227204 is a Tung-Sol tube manufactured during the fonurth week of 1972. Tung-Sol 6550 tubes made for other companies (like RCA) have a four-digit date code only."
Attached is one of the boxes that they came in. So they could be JAN an ex-Military version, which presumably is a tougher version.
I have had a first listen to them.
Listening to Trevor Pinnock's the Vivaldi Concertos, the English Concert - Soaring violins , the music flows effortlessly, the highs just appear, liquid sounding like flowing water, the harp's strings sound so reallistic, the harpsichord sounds like it is playing live in front of me, with the natural string timbre when each key is played. Not as deep bass as the EI KT90s or as punchy. NOS GEC KT88s are more forward/ in your face, Mids & highs are great.
Natural sounding, (not over tubey or over warm), and not harsh in any way.
Very happy to have them. They are a welcome addition to the GEC KT88s, and more latterly the EIKT90s that I have only had a brief listen to.
It would seem that the three getter is a grey plate but when listening I can't detect any discernible difference between the two of them.
BTW they are true NOS - how long before they get broken in?
As I said in my response to your post, they ceratinly appear genuine. I do not doubt that they are actual Tung-Sol tubes just that in the dozens of TS 6550 that I own, I've never seen that date code scheme of tubes that are branded "Tung-Sol". Other companies such as Tung-Sol 6550s branded RCA? Yes.
Quite honestly I've never noticed a change in sound as NOS Tung-Sol 6550s have burned-in. Maybe I was just too happy with them to begin with.
Enjoy your Tung-Sols. Your description of how they sound versus old stock GEC KT88 and Ei-KT90 sounds pretty well identical to my own.
Joe
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: