What is your impression of vintage Telefunken signal tubes ?

I miss calling Toni @Telefunken just to chat.  RIP my old friend!

@signaforce I had read your posts from 2024 re your selection of the BHK preamplifier.   I also went the same route last week and I’m still very much in the breakin period.  The tubes you referenced above, are those for the BHK?

I was running a stock Freya Plus and found a heavenly match of tubes to go with it.   So far, the Freya Plus is better than the BHK, but the Delta is getting narrower as the stock BHK tubes breakin (about 50 hours so far).

My belief is that I’m going to have to do some tube rolling to take advantage of what the BHK can do.  In terms of the 12 volt options, everyone seems to love the  Brimars which seems like you can agree.

But, I have seen where people comment about switching to the 6 volts (change the jumper configuration), and once they do that, they say "magic" happens and that they’ll never go back to 12 volt.  Have you tried that yet?

The stock Psvanes are minimally acceptable, but a little noisy.  My goal is to try to achieve a better SQ than my Freya configuration...let's see.

I think I’m going to try matched pair of top notch, cryo Electroharmonix 12 volts first since that was one of the matched pair tube brands that was magical in my Freya first, and then will move on to a 6 volt.

@genomeip Yes, in the BHK pre, my only tubes component.
To be honest, I never considered the 6v alternative. A quick Gemini search yielded the following: ..described by owners as "taking the blanket off the speakers."… It feels more "front row" and panoramic, whereas your 12Vs feel more like "mid-hall."… however… Because they are higher gain, 6V tubes can be noisier… 

Sounds like fun… going to have to buy a pair of 6v tubes. Thanks!

Don’t mean to hijack this thread, but probably going 6v Amperex. Seems like a nice balance between my Tele/Siemens & Brimar’s. Thoughts?
Anyone have experience with the Amperex 7308 USA Gold Pin from Tube Depot? Thanks!

@signaforce Sounds like a good plan.  I have Amperex 7308 tubes in my  BHK250 amp.  So far so good.  The sound is solid with no noise, nice weighty bass, and soundstaging.  But,  unfortunately I don’t have any experience with the 6v Amperex.

For 6v tubes, the Electroharmonix 6sn7 Platinum cryo treated tubes from Upscale were a heavenly revelation in my Freya Plus... it had truly transformed it from blah (flat sounding with the Tung Sols) to magic (amazingly holographic, detailed but not clinical, greater dynamics, nice full bass, incredible realism, very wide, deep, and high soundstage).  I also purchased some Cryotone 6sn7 tubes as well.  In my Freya system, those were equivalent to the Electroharmonix in every way, but they were 3x the cost.

For my BHK pre, I’m likely going to go with one of the Cryotone 12v tubes, and then some Goldlion Kevin’s stash cryo treated tubes. I’ve heard great things about the RCA Clear tops, but I’ve had mixed success with the purveyors of those tubes...Ebay and one of the online tube places.  As a result, I only buy my tubes from Upscale or Cryotone because I can easily return if defective or I don’t like them,  and for Cryotone, they "make" them and thus are very quick to rectify issues if they arise.