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I purchased a quad of 1940s Sylvania Vt231s on Sunday for my Kt88 mono blocks. The fellow I bought them from had recently purchased them along with a LOT of other tubes in one large lot purchase. He tested enough VT 231s to find four that matched real close and tested
very high (as in new). The tubes were used--they were out of their
boxes, but, it was unknown what their history was.
I purchased them more out of a sense of curiousity than anything. Frankly, I wasn't sure that I'd see much difference in them and other
6sn7s I had used. And, up until this evening, I still wasn't hearing any dramatic difference.
Then....
I was sitting in my easy chair, reading a magazine ( Stereophile, of course, lol), listening to my favorite FM station (KPLU)on a refurbished Fisher 200B when all of a sudden, I realized I was hearing qualities I hadn't heard before with these amps. Lush
resplendant bass, full liquid mids and well defined cymbals and brushes. It just caught me and dragged me into the music. What a
nice experience.
My point, and my surprise, was that even though these VT 231s were used, it still took around 20 hours for them to come alive and
reveal their full characteristics--that was, indeed, a surprise.
Happy listening,
Regards,
JRM.
Follow Ups:
JRM:
I put in a pair of NOS TungSol round plates in my Berning microZOTL about 100 hours ago. They sounded great until about 4 days ago, when they suddenly started to bloom. They continue to improve. Top, bottom, mids, sound stage are better than any 6sn7 type I've used. Each listening session reveals more.
No problem with microphonics, but I'm using Herbie's Halo dampers (as I do on all tubes, including rectifiers).
Those are one of my favorite 6SN7's.Are they used as drivers instead of gain stage in your tube amp?
Maybe complianed those VT-231's are microphonic. But using as drivers in my amps I've never heard any problem at all (except dying ones).
Enjoy them.
I got VT-231 tubes that take 2 days just to settle-in after power-on in a cold-state.
My preamps quad takes about an hour of warm up to get past the "nasties". But, then what a wonderful sounding tube for the rest of the listening time. I like to turn my preamp on at a low level about 45 minutes prior and do something else until then. It's of no use to try to listen any sooner. It only make me feel like I've wasted my time listening when the VT's at last "come on".
KPLU? You must be a Northwest Audiophile! My favorite as well.
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