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NOS Tubes - Agony or Ecstasy -Part II - The Search

I thought I would do an update on my search for Tubes for my Don Sach's 6sn7 based Preamp.  The amp came with Shuguang we6sn7's.  Decent tubes once you get some good ones. About 3  out of 10 are bad.

So I started a search for some fine NOS tubes. Found the great reference threads on the Dehavilland and Head-HiFi sites as a starting point. I researched every possible seller except for Ebay, I won't buy anything on Ebay anymore.  I ended up buy tubes from a variety of sellers. Here are my experiences. Certainly not intending to critique any particular seller, just sharing my buying experiences.

I need matched pairs and wanted to mix brands including 50's RCAs, VT231's, 40/50's Sylvanias and Ken Rad.

Brent Jesse Recording equipment - ordered a pair of chrome top Sylvania's.  One tube dead on arrival. Sent them back and exchanged for a pair of older Sylvanias (bottom getter 2 rivet). He labeled them as "Bad Boys" but they are clearly not the 3 rivet version.  These tubes were so Microphonic they were completely unusable. One of them actually would feed back when tapped. Sent them back. I don't trust Brent's claims about testing so I will not order from him again.

Viva Tubes - Ok, so this seller has a bit of a reputation for hyperbole. In fact, all of his Sylvania tubes have "Bad Boy somewhere in the description, I guess for internet searches.  They are also mostly not true NOS but in his description "Tested NOS"? Whatever that means. He has a solid return policy for noise and miicrophonics so I went ahead and got a pair of Sylvania 2 rivet, bottom Getters, dated around 53. Tubes are great, pins needed cleaning but they sound great and have very low microphonics and no noise to speak of. So positive experience here.

TCtubes - Got a pair of 56 RCA GTB's just now. Zero microphonics, tubes look NOS, pins are clean. Burning them in but expect them to end up being keepers.  These guys are very responsive to emails, they just do not have a big inventory of 6sn7 but I'll buy from them in the future.

Vintage Tube Services - Andy has a great reputation and is 6 weeks behind on orders (maybe more like 8) So I ordered some Ken-Rads and am still waiting.  I have high hopes for Andy's tubes. Now that I have a basic stash it won't be so hard to wait a couple of months.

I also heard good things about Upscale but they did not have much in the way of NOS 6sn7's.  A couple of other recommended dealers did not have inventory.  There is one dealer on Etsy. However, he posted a photo of Sylvania's with hand painted logo so I shied away - he is very responsive to messages however.

At any rate - I hope that Andy finally gets those Ken Rad's shipped as I think they will be a great match to the Sylvania's - best of both worlds.  BTW, so far the descriptions of tonal qualities on the Dehavilland thread have been pretty right on the money.

drew.


drewh1
drewh1 OP
115 posts
 
+1 for Tubemonger - great photos of the classic NOS tubes, A big help for identification of tubes.  Tubemongerlib.com   

pinwa - thanks for the recommendation. I'll check out valvenmore.  

Just know, Sylvania and others manufactured tubes labeled for other companies. For instance, Hammond organs, Motorola, and others. I think these are fine tubes in most cases. So that does complicate matters. They do generally have the original makers ID number on them. These are listed on 
drewh1 OP
115 posts
 
Regarding new tubes, for certain tube types, there are great new tubes out there.  300b for example:  EML, elrog, etc.  I think 2a3's have some great options as well.  6sn7s do not ):  
tuberist's avatar
tuberist
951 posts
 
The KenRad VT231 is my favorite 6SN7, great tone with a meaty presentation
petg60
1,486 posts
 

If you want to go deep into NOS territory you have to study and learn as to avoid nasty surprises.
Buying NOS and tube rolling without a cause is the best way to throw money but even today relatively easy to resell.
Something that we always forget is that modern gear is designed with new production tubes in mind. So if you want a better sound of your gear and not a different one try to locate the older made tubes but from same manufacturer.
When you hit the ones you want grab spares from same source asap.

G

tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,532 posts
 
Phillips was a Dutch conglomerate that owned many of the popular European tube manufacturers, Amperex, Mullard Siemens, Valvo, etc. Tubes from one manufacturer often would be labelled with the name of another manufacturer. To find out where and when the tube was actually made you have to look at the etched tube codes. Here is a listing of all those tube codes:

D:MyFilesWordPerfectPhiltitle.PDF (pocnet.net)

Etched tube codes can be hard or too faint to read, but if you want to know what you’re getting, you need to check these codes. There are probably people out there who can etch counterfeit tubes, but if you stay with reputable sellers, you should be OK.

If you decide to use the PHILIPS FACTORY VALVE CODES linked above, you only need to be concerned with the ’NEW CODE’ not the ’OLD CODE’ as illustrated on page 3.

NOS tubes are kind of a side line of high-end audio. I personally enjoyed learning about them and rolling them. If it doesn’t sound like fun to you, just go with new production tubes. That’s much cheaper and easier. Or, if you want to try NOS tubes, I recommend buying them from a reputable dealer and taking his advice. Learning about them and buying off ebay is very time consuming and higher risk.

There are reputable sellers on ebay with great tubes, but there are also crooks. No surprise there. You can find good European sellers on ebay, for example.

There are also tube manufacturers not owned by Phillips, like Telefunken, who use different methods of identifying their tubes. So it can get complicated.
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