Tube Sale

RuSsMaN

Antique Electronic Supply has a sale going on, with some popular tube models.

Valve Art 6550's - $15.95 each, El34's - $9.95 each

Some other pretty good deals on 12ax7 and 6BQ5/EL84.

www.tubesandmore.com

Sales Flyer

Cheers,
Russ

BlueMDPicker

(Shhhhhhh.... don't tell anyone, but they have WE 396A's NOS for sale cheaper than the no research bidders are paying on eBay. I was going to order a case, re-sell, and get flush enough to afford one of Doro's double filet salads.)

They just had a fairly large sale that ended yesterday. Must be Spring cleaning time all over?

organ

Thanks for the link.

Also, remember to look out for www.thetubestore.com EL34 summer sale. Every summer they lower the price of selected EL34 to $19.99/pair. Can't remember which ones were on sale last year but I know EH was one of them for sure. I think they have it around May or June.

Maurice

Whadyasay

Best new production tubes are the JJ Electronics. They sound great and are built to last, especially their rectifier tubes. I use them in my guitar amps and won't go with any others.

organ

Whadyasay,
Are you using the 5AR4? I've always wanted to try the JJ. I'm currently using a Mullard which blows away the Sovtek. Have you compared the JJ 5AR4 to a Mullard? Eventually I'll have to go current production on rectifier tubes because NOS is getting very pricey.

Maurice

Whadyasay

I do have a JJ 5AR4/GZ34, but when I play a gig I use the WeberVST copper cap rectifier....

http://www.webervst.com/ccap.html

...mostly because I don't want to worry about breaking anything, but the JJ is fine and sturdy...it holds up well over hours of continuous useage, whereas mediocre ones tend to make the amp a bit more distorted and less powerful as the night goes on. I do have a Sylvannia-labeled Mullard, but I keep that safe and don't use it unless I'm recording.

Basically, when it comes to rectifier tubes, it's not so much an issue of sound/tone but the tube's reliability and durability. Rectifier tubes run hot, and crappy ones perform worse the longer they're on...resulting in a loss of output power and a more distorted sound...which may be fine in a guitar amp per se, but if you start the gig at a certain volume, and later on that same setting is less loud and fuzzier, it's very disturbing. You want the amp to perform the same throughout the gig.

Forget any of the Sovtek (some of them aren't even real 5AR4's) and/or the Chinese-made ones. They are crap, plain and simple. And don't even bother with Groove Tubes...they are simply re-labeled Russian and Chinese tubes for the most part with a marketing premium. The folks at JJ/Eurotubes really put a lot into the production of their tubes to get them as close as possible to original NOS quality, in both sound and durability.