Tube tester I can listen to


I have a bunch of tubes I bought used off the net, and while they all test fine, when you plug them in, they are either noisy or emit intermittent spitty noises.I have a TV-7 and Hickock Cardmatic tester and was wondering if there is an inexpensive tester out there where I can actually listen to the tube before using my preamp/amp as a guinea pig. I know about George Kaye's unit, but it is to expensive. Albert Porter mentioned one that New Sensor sells (Otto I think) but I could not locate it on thier site.
jig
the TV-7 has jacks you can plug headphones into. Try that first...

Really, there is no good way to test for microphonics except to put it in the circuit in the gear it will be used it. Anything else is an approximation at best.

-Ed
Vacuum Tube Valley sells a " Dual triode preamp vacuum tube characterizer"...apparently a tube tester that tests noise and microphonics. Check out their website at:

http://www.vacuumtube.com/toppage31.htm

If you do buy one, let me know how it performs.

Neil