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In Reply to: Re: Which means the Tung-Sols are built to have superior cosmetics with similar materials.(nt) posted by Jim McShane on April 24, 2007 at 18:42:27:
You make some good points Jim. I think the tube market looks pretty healthy right now. Competition has raised the quality too. Look at the better quality of tubes made in China. They were pretty bad a few years back.
I've always enjoyed both solid state and tubes. There are good and bad examples of each. When I threw in the towel and said goodbye to tubes ten years ago, it was because the tubes were very shaky and there were not high quality alternatives in my mind. You can only take so much and you had to be brave to stick it out 10-20 years ago.
I got back into listening through tubes a few months back for the third time and I'm enjoying music more than ever now. There are many good tubes available now and the prices are fair. I happen to believe that tubes are underpriced currently, across the board, but I'm not complaining!
doggy
Follow Ups:
"...it was because the tubes were very shaky and there were not high quality alternatives in my mind."It seems odd to say that there were no high quality alternatives to shaky modern production tubes 10 or 20 years ago - I mean the good NOS tubes were more plentiful and MUCH cheaper 10 or 20 years ago, so I'm thinking that there were all kinds of alternatives available.
That was my perception at the time. It was bad enough that I wanted to get away from tube gear completely. At the time I had a ARC D75 (still have), a Dynaco PAS4, a Luxman CL35/III, a Dynaco tubed cd player (can't remember the model now), a Dynaco SCA35, a Jolida 302 and a VTL ST80.
I had a lot of tube failures and it drove me crazy. At the time I had over 100 nos tubes (mostly small signal), 55 of which were Telefunken 12AX7s, purchased for $5.00 each from the Grass Instrument Co. in Braintree, MA. No problems with those, however.
Fifteen years later, I have had four failures since I changed over to tubes in my most listened to of three systems. They were a Tesla E34L (purchased mid-late nineties, supplied by Quicksilver), a Sovtek EL34G (purchased approx. mid nineties, all 4 crackle and pop), a JJ KT77 (supplied by Rogue) and a 12AX7 (supplied by Quicksilver).
I picked up most of my NOS from old, dilapidated TV repair shops and the like in the early '90s. Some came from purchases through AudioMart, Some through Andy Bowman (at the time, just a local character that had great tube hunting skills).Yes, old stock was more available then but a person had to be "in the know" to be looking for (foraging really) and finding the good stuff.
These are the best of times IMHO. There are cheap, reliable tubes that don't blow up in your amp from Russia and China these days. Adjusted for inflation, these new production tubes are cheaper than the drugstore variety that one purchased for the color telly in the late 60's!
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Al G
Born To Tinker!
Al,Price aside, do you think the new production tubes sound as good as the NOS tubes?
The SED 6L6GC is a great tube in my Heathkit W-5M amps, as is the Valve Art KT66.The Sovtek 12AX7LPS stands right up with the best. The Chinese Shugaung 12AX7-C is good too.
This info has been repeated by at least 4 posters in the last week on this board. Their experience backs up the way I feel in my personal experience.
Just the fact that you can buy a new production 5AR4 rectifier that will work in a ST-70 is a vast improvement from the early '90s Chinese imports (much less the staggering variety of EL34's that are available today).
HTH
Any opinions on current 6sn7's?
NT = No Text to be found here.
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Al G
Born To Tinker!
"You make some good points Jim. I think the tube market looks pretty healthy right now. Competition has raised the quality too. Look at the better quality of tubes made in China. They were pretty bad a few years back."That's a great example too, they went from worthless junk to excellent quality.
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