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In Reply to: RE: ANY us made old stock 6SN7 will be a vast improvement posted by Chip647 on February 19, 2016 at 04:55:44
That tube on the left, is a GE, can't see markings on the other. Those were super plentiful in 1950s televisions.
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Interesting you say this about the TV. I had an old neighbor that put his old TV - prob late 60s or early 70s zenith out to the garbage. My son and I grabbed it - gutted the tubes and put it back out. I have no idea what I have and am hesitant to kerplunk anything in my pre. If I recall - I believe they were GE. I'll have to take a look.
I know... Sounds kind of desperate doesn't it?? LOL.
I have a couple old TVs I restored, philco predicta for example... nobody is going to argue that tube video looks better but it's fun to work on, and I like watching it. The predicta even came with a Mullard el84 audio output. In a TV from the 1970s the only usable audio tubes you'd find may be a 6CG7 or some 6GH8s if you happen to have the dynaco which uses them. By then most makers had switched to compactrons specifically designed for tv service rather than the general purpose tubes in earlier sets which have cross over audio applications.
You don't need to spend big money on 50's to 60's 6SN7 tubes that will put the chinese stuff to shame
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.
It's typical of all the "Hi end" crowd to talk totally meaningless rubbish like this,-
"Sound stage, 3D sound, and hyperbole like "simply blow the basic current production tubes out of the water".
What does this verbiage mean?
I can't believe I am reading this from 60-65 year old adult males who can't hear anything over 8Khz...then make the wildest claims for their ears.
Are you joking?
I guess all amps sound the same also?
Let me spell this out so even you can understand Ivan. Some tubes sound like shit. Some tubes sound good. Some tubes sound great. Depending on the circuit they are in to some extent.
Simple isn't it?
Indeed I believe the bottom line runs something like:-
Shit in = shit out.
There is nothing objective or in the slightest bit scientific about claiming one valve sounds better than another.
There is a lot of production spread on mass produced radio valves, and then there are almost no circuits which were ever specific in the demand for one parameter or another,-
(Unless of course you were an OEM like Mullard and nobody else made the valves, transformers and components specified, - eg. Partridge, Gardner, Woden, Parmeko to name some quality names).
Today this impossible because the market for millions of units evaporated in the 1960s, so what you have left is, nothing better than mountains of hearsay.
If you produce millions of valves (in 1960) cheap enough, you can afford to reduce the spread, then farm the sub standard ones to anyone willing to buy them dirt cheap (like some OEMs always will).
That is how they make money, and of course why there is so much demand for stuff from Asia.
As an example:-
Yesterday a simple power cable on my notebook PSU failed.
Most people would go and buy a new PSU.
Because we can, we investigated the cause and it came from sub standard wire from China.
I've had microphone cable from China which didn't even conduct electricity.
They sell that because it means they sell more of it, just like say a badly designed bottom ball joint on the front suspension of a car...
Sub standard stuff is great for the retail market because it enables you to generate failures and to make the customer pay for putting them right.
I don't know of any mass production industry that operates any different, cars, computers, you name it.
It's designed to FAIL, so that you can sell them more at inflated price.
The current fashion 6SN7 marketplace is just another version of the great capitalist waste generation program.
Production rejects are what makes mass production what it is.
The reject rate is usually what makes the difference between good, bad or ugly, ie. like the difference between a Lada an Opel or a Mercedes.
The old adage is;- you can't make a silken purse from a sow's ear.
Finally, not opinion but medical fact.
Women of 55-65 have much more acute hearing than men.
By the time men reach 35, their hearing is already going down the drain.
-10dB at 8khz.
By the time they are at 45 it's -20dB.
At 65 years of age sounds of over 4khz are just lost in the background mush and SN.
And you try to convince me you can hear things which are either masked or inaudible?
That's a joke.
You are stating facts derived from your graphs but you have no references to go with them. Who knows where they came from or the population that was selected for the testing. Perhaps these graphs were made from men working in a Steel mill vs secretaries in an insurance company? Meaningless.
Another point is that like all things some people have better hearing than other people, as some people have better vision, etc. And I bet you that if you test the hearing of "audiophiles" correlated to their age group you will find that they have much better hearing than most people. cheers, Dak
"Perhaps these graphs were made from men working in a Steel mill vs secretaries in an insurance company? Meaningless."
I know I hit a nerve here.
Sadly these graphs are more likely to be highly optimistic.
Since the arrival of mobile devices with their accompanying hearing damage, you will find the majority of the young generation, not only are used to not recognising masking effects any more, but the hearing is degraded even further with a good dose of "digital deafness".
You won't recruit a hydraphone guy easily for submarines any more.
Even worse, I was astonished to see lots of professional oboe players are no longer able to distinguish between 439 and 442hz, so they resort to yet another "app" on their Iphone to try to work it out.
(I call it the "lamerz needle")
The whole world is going deaf, with ADD thrown in for good measure, not just "hi end" audio guys.
It's just silly to post graphs of (presumably) average hearing without providing a range and standard deviation, because the range is very large. There are 35 y.o. wearing hearing aids, and 70 y.o. hearing to 12 kHz and beyond.
Deciding which tubes sound good and which sound bad is a purely subjective pursuit, like most things in audio. You can go up the blind A or B testing road to get some "scientific" angle, but really what's the point?
You hear a tube in your amp and decide if you like it or not. Then something else comes along and you decide if it is better than the first tube. You do this long enough and you create a rating scale. Many other people do the same thing in their amps. They come up with their own ratings. On a forum, somebody asks for a opinion on a certain tube. The people who have experimented with that tube chime in with their opinions. Sometimes a consensus forms, with many different people using that tube in their equipment responding the same way about the way the tube sounds. This is not bullshit, but it is not exactly scientific either. Does that make the general opinion on that tube wrong?
Not sure of your points regarding mass production other than to say that 2 (6sn7s) tubes from the same company may sound different. I agree but find the better the tube the less variation in production. That's why I generally prefer NOS tubes. With them the variability is generally tied to prior use and or abuse.
Regarding hearing loss at high frequencies, since 90% of most music (just a guesstimate I admit) is between 100hZ and 4000hZ why does this mean us old men (I am 53) can't judge the sound of a tube? Should all us old men sell our stereos and switch to Bose radios?
Edits: 02/23/16 02/23/16
"Deciding which tubes sound good and which sound bad is a purely subjective pursuit, like most things in audio."
Couldn't disagree more.
If everything is subjective then there is no point in doing anything properly, it's just a world full of arbitrary ideas and pseudo science.
I know Pseudo science is incredibly popular, as it resembles witchcraft.
"You can go up the blind A or B testing road to get some "scientific" angle, but really what's the point?"
The point is you CAN measure what sounds good and what sounds bad.
Usually this is done in industry with Bruel and Kjaer equipment which has a totally flat response.
What you see it what you get.
If it applies to measuring the spectra of aircraft engine noise and taking measures to change it, then it's good enough for me.
"You hear a tube in your amp and decide if you like it or not. Then something else comes along and you decide if it is better than the first tube. You do this long enough and you create a rating scale."
Well I never do things like that for the simple reason I design my stuff to do what is says on the tin.
In other words it's been designed to work as it was designed.
If it does something unexpected or sub optimal, then it's my fault for having done the design wrong or picked the wrong component in the first place.
I don't blame radio valves for being non linear and becoming picky about components,while causing chaos in all their operating parameters.
Such amplifiers are fundamentally unstable distortion creators.
The whole point about linear amplifiers, as viewed by people like Linsley-Hood, was that the output signal should resemble as close as possible the input signal.
That's how it works in studio mixers for decades, and I don't see how or why it should be any different in a power amplifier.
OK Ivan you can stick to your numbers and testing I will trust my geezer ears. After all its my system in my house. I will use the tubes I like, and if any one asks about a tube I am familiar with I will tell them what I think.
Feel free to disregard or roll your eyes or make any comment you like!
Regards,
Mendel
Steve,Are you thinking of Neville Keatly? He was the guy in Melbourne that first sold them on eBay way back when. I know a couple of guys who bought Neville's entire remaining stock of '52 Slys's from him. Not sure how many pair Neville originally started out with, but these fellas bought 60+ pairs of them from him and cleaned him out. That was a long time ago. They may still have a few pairs of them, but a bunch of them got sold off via Audiogon over the years. I still have two pair that I bought from Neville that I'm saving. Still in those Navy spare parts boxes. And yes, I got that pic of the '52 tube innards from Len - along with a incredibly sweet pair of NU GG's (my all-time favorite 6SN7).
Mike
Edits: 02/21/16
Yes that sounds right. To be sure I will have to try and write to Len, who can then give me their correct provenance. I am sure they came by way of Australia.
It is a pity, indeed, that Len got out of the business. The tubes I bought from him were always in great condition, true NOS appearing, testing and the vast majority NIB.
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