Preamp Deal of the Century

I owe Ecclectique and apology.

For quite some time he has posted his preference for the Tung Sol 6SN7 RP. I have posted in reply that in my system the EH 6SN7 was the equal of the Tung Sol.

Well, recently my right channel EH 6SN7 began spitting and popping. I went online to order more. In the mean time I broke out my NOS tubes. I took out the Tung Sol RP plates and popped them in.

After 10 minutes I continued to shake my head asking myself what did Ecclectique hear in this tube that was so great? But I left them in and left my preamp own for about 3 days. When I finally had time to listen again I hit the play button and WOW! Okay, now we got sumpin'...more detail, extreme clarity, layering of the soundstage and much more "you are there".

In the past when I put the RPs in I would try them for an hour and pull them out. They always sounded thin and uninvolving to me. It appears that I simply did not give them time to open up. I assumed that even though they were sold to me as NOS, I figured that they probably had some hours on them and were already run in.

Ecclectique, my apologies. I was wrong and you were absolutely right. The Tung Sol RPs are much better than the EH 6SN7s.

I have always taken your advice very seriously, but I just didn't understand your excitement about the RPs. Now I do and I appreciate your persistence in posting about the RPs.

The only caveat to my RPs are that they are rather microphonic and they have a lot of tube hiss. My goal now is to find two more pairs that are NOS, low noise and microphonics. So the search begins!

Sorry about the typos and grammatical errors. Obviously didn't proof this one very carefully! Anyone know if there is an edit function?

Hey Fiddler. No need to for any apologies here, just good to see your Tung-sol roundplates are starting show off and srut their stuff. Tube rolling with any gear can be perplexing at times given all the variables, particularly with the 6sn7 family of tubes. The entire 6sn7 family have a tendency to be prone to microphony and/or noise when employed as a gain tube. Given the incredable resolving capability of the Supratek preamps,and magnified by the high gain of the circuit itself....... you now have gain stage that will allow you to hear the best/or worst of the particular brand tube being employed. Unfortunately...the tube's noise ,hiss,hum,or microphony will be magnified as well. No wonder why Mick Maloney and so many others recommend using the stock EH 6sn7 gain tubes. Mick has done an incredible job of voicing his preamp with the EH 6sn7. I am more than certain Mick is testing,screening and cherry picking the best examples from every lot he orders from Electro Harmonics, culling and discarding the examples that don't make the grade. The EH 6sn7 is far and away the best sounding 6sn7 of current manufacture, leaps and bounds better than the sovtek he was originally working with. The very best examples of new old stock 6sn7's are so hediously expensive to acquire these days...when one factors in the n7's penchant to be prone to hiss,hum and microphony. I would guess the EH 6sn7 is simply a "No Brainer". I do consider myself very very fortunate these days as I have always had a huge collection of nos tubes at my disposal. I spent 14 years in the field as a techie for Dukane {Bell % Howell}. We serviced,repaired and calibrating amplifiers in the big movie theaters,concert halls, churches, schools,colleges, universities etc in Canada. The 6sn7 was employed in the majority of amplifiers back in the day, not to mention jukes, radios and nearly every television ever made.Allowing me the luxury of collecting hundreds on n7's when they were cheaper than cup of coffee. Ever wonder why Tube Dealers use a grade rating system for their inventory of old stock 6sn7's???? "Buyer Beware" is the appropriate warning here! If it is graded as a standard grade tube, or a driver grade tube.... Do yourself a favour and "don't even consider it guys".... as it's just a sure fire recipee for a major disapointment here, particularly if it's to be employed for a gain stage in a high quality preamp! Meaning... preamp grade tubes only here gang!!! Noisey tubes are a major liablity and will only serve to mask much of the micro resolution,nuance and timbre buried under the noise floor. Remove the noise and you will be just amazed at how much more of the musical information you've been missing! When voicing my Supratek with any given brand of nos 6sn7's... I would typically need to go through 6-10 examples to find a matched pair with a noise floor that was low enough for use in the supratek. Some brands...Kenrad Black glass for example[my favourite beside the Tungsol round], had an even higher culling rate! Fortunately, the Tungsol round plates are usually much more consistent here...typically lower in noise and tighter triode sections. Hey Fiddler, now that you have discovered the real magic of the Tung-sol round..... lose that pair over at flea-bay and grab a low noise pair. Life is grand.

I agree that the Tung Sol round plates are the best sounding line stage tubes in my Cortese, but when you factor in the cost these things are going for these days, I will stay with the EH 6sn7's (a true audio bargain). As Ecclectique says, you may have to gothrough several pairs to get a really quiet matched set. I just don't have the money or the interest in paying high prices and hoping I will get a good pair. The EH 6sn7's work fine for me.

Hey Fla. Did you get Dual cab up and running yet?