Vacuum Tube Snake Oil Salesmen

Just a mini rant to complain about vacuum tube suppliers (not all but most) and their false advertising.

I ordered a set of 4 matched 2A3 Acme tubes direct from PSVane for my Woo Audio WA33 as an upgrade. They cost close to $1k all together.

When I got them I checked on my MaxiMatcher2. The boxes said 65mA but with correct operating voltage and bias set on the tester I could only get 2 of them up to 43mA. One other read 39mA. And the last one was an internal fault short which could have damaged my amp had I not checked them.

I asked to return one "Matched" set for replacement. The PSVane customer service would only offer to send me one tube and not a matched pair. They would not pay return shipping to return one set. Instead they demanded I smash the bad tube and send them a picture. Has anyone ever smashed a large vacuum tube with a hammer and seen where all the pieces of glass fly to? I said no way. I will throw it out or return it but I am not going to risk cutting my hand doing that. So they refused to send a replacement. 

While I had the Maximatcher out I decided to go thru some other tubes I had in my spares box to check them (purchased before I had the tube tester). I could not believe the results. Some tubes matched by well known vendors were off by as much as 30% from each other.

It is really a good investment to get a tube tester if you will be a regular user of tube amps. 

If you must buy PSVane then get them from Amazon and not direct so you have some safety to return them.