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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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In Reply to: Misleading Ebay Tube Testing Claims posted by FlaCharlie on July 20, 2006 at 14:52:59:
Statements claiming matched pair and test good. The last one almost assures a weak tube. The first claim may ultimately mean two poorly triode section matches or just not matched in a high percentage of cases. It seems that about 50% of these sellers count on you not being able to tell. I am listening to "test strong" tubes which are in fact marginal VT231s (?) mark tubes, but they do in fact play fairly well.
I have been sold all sorts of garbage as it turns out. Tubes that are supposedly NOS on ebay never seem to test anywhere near that, whereas reliable dealers test NOS strength, or better.
One experienced tube-o-phile and former dealer told me ebay is a dumping ground for tubes that can't be sold to retail dealers because they no dealer would accept them. He did say, however that as many as 50% are actually not bad tubes at all. so it's a crap shoot.
It wasn't until I couldn't rely upon using my friends gain only tester, that I finally gave in and bought a recently "just callibrated" tester of my own which I am in the process of verifying.
I got an inexpensive, Hickcok Mutual Conductance tester model 800 essentially the 600 without the socket island.
Since I collect mainly double triodes with low voltage operating conditions this is OK, but for power tubes I understand that these tests are not under real world conditions but it is still good at telling you if a you have a good or weak tube.
The question is why is there so much greed and dishonesty. I am a native New Yorker where our motto is "trust no one." Furthermore you are always asking yourself what is the angle this person is using. It really makes me wonder about my fellow man inmates excluded of course (yeah right oops.)
Still retail dealers of good tubes who simply will not be fooled still charge unreal markups. Some will buy large quantities and select out the few really good ones which is costly. The rest may be tossed while others sell the semi functional tubes you know where.
From what I understand they just don't pay much for the tubes they sell. Except typical mark ups on new production which is 50 points. i.e. twice as much as they paid but that is still better than 10Xs. Dealers go ahead and correct me, flame whatever, but I think I know the truth because a couple of people in the business told me similar stories.
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Follow Ups
- Re: Misleading Ebay Tube Testing Claims - Mechans 19:22:18 07/20/06 (1)
- 'ebay is a dumping ground' - Jimmy 11:09:32 07/21/06 (0)
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