2. analog
  3. 125078-1452

Bad NOS tubes...

I just want to put this out there...as much as I would not like to...my head says otherwise. Tube buyers beware!!!

On 3/7/16 I bought 6 NOS Mullard 12au7 4003 tubes for my preamp from a vender out of Minesing, Ontario Canada... under the store front name of ’mullard.com’ http://www.mullardtubes.com/Mullard-ECC82-12AU7-CV4003/?ID=0&ProductID=153 and ’ tube products.com’ http://www.tubeaudioproducts.com/Mullard-Brimar/ProductDetail.aspx?CatID=65&ProductID=153#

The owner is one Alfred Kayser. On his site/sites he states all of his tubes are tested and matched for best performance values. Well,I went ahead and ordered and received said tubes. After 2-3 months of use I started to hear unacceptable levels of noise from my speakers,you know, the dirty sound of that dreaded tube noise of a scratching, distorted, dirty volume pot type of noise,which totally infringes upon the music. I went ahead and called Alfred and asked him about it and he just responded there is "nothing he could do" for me. Hey,no problem,but he advertised full-up tested tubes. If it was only one bad tube,I could understand,I’m a realist...things happen.

But!!!

Long story short,I came to find out that four of the six tubes are defective and are not what I paid for. Two are fine. So the moral of this story is...When buying tubes,do not go the cheaper route,find and use a "reputable" tube vender and save yourself some time,money and aggravation. Of course I will never use this guy again for any of my audio needs... Hope this is of some help to the Audiogon membership.

aolmrd1241

Showing 1 response by thekong

thekong
203 posts
 

I am somewhat with stevecham on this one, not that I can't tell the difference in sound, but it is not a sure thing that NOS will always outperform current production tubes.

I believe, like many things in audio, it is just a matter of matching. Different brands of tubes (NOS or current production) do have different sound, so the users have to match them to their systems. For example, in one of my amps, I prefer the plain EH6922 to NOS Amperex 7308.

Think about it, most current tube amp manufacturers are probably tuning the sound of their amps with current production tubes, so NOS tubes probably don’t have any advantages.

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