Preamp Tubes? - Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?

[ken361]

You guys hear of tube grinders or tech tube? they seem pretty good.

 

[RiverRatt]

It's coming from Lori Silberberg (greengirl613). All BIN tubes, no bids. She has a lot of tubes listed.

ken361, there has been much discussion about Tech Tube. Their first run of E813CCs was very microphonic. From what I have read, they are working hard to correct this. I'm hoping for good things from them in the future, but I'm not buying into it yet. There are too many great NOS tubes around for the same price or less.

 

[ken361]

It's coming from Lori Silberberg (greengirl613). All BIN tubes, no bids. She has a lot of tubes listed.

ken361, there has been much discussion about Tech Tube. Their first run of E813CCs was very microphonic. From what I have read, they are working hard to correct this. I'm hoping for good things from them in the future, but I'm not buying into it yet. There are too many great NOS tubes around for the same price or less.

would be nice to see them in the usa some time in the future huh!!

 

[RiverRatt]

It would be nice to be able to buy a CP tube that is as good as the old ones. It's a shame that they can't use the Mullard name, even though they are made in the Blackburn plant.

I found a link to a Phillips booklet called "Phillips Factory Valve Codes" from 2005. If any of you haven't seen it, it's a pretty good reference.

http://frank.pocnet.net/other/Philips/PhilipsCodeListAB.pdf

 

[RiverRatt]

I've got mail! Marty's care package arrived just now. I've got all these goodies to play with, and I'll be stuck at this computer until midnight. I may have to go home early tomorrow.

 

[MartyStrat54]

Yeah, I've bought from GreenGirl. She started out small, but has gotten bigger. I wonder how some of these people come across all of these tubes.

Tina used to be small, but now she is selling lots of eight, xf2 Double O Mullards NIB for thousands of dollars and she has like four lots! Then she has lots of four of the same tubes for sale and a bunch of preamp tubes.

I talked to an EBAY husband and wife team and the husband was out almost all of the time looking for possible buy sites. Homes, businesses, estate sales, any place he might find tubes or other items to sell. He would come home for three days, help his wife do an inventory and set pricing. Then on the road he went again and she would set up all of the listings and handle the shipping. They make 85 to 100K a year, but is it worth it? (Oh, no kids.)

 

[Procter2812]

It's coming from Lori Silberberg (greengirl613). All BIN tubes, no bids. She has a lot of tubes listed.

ken361, there has been much discussion about Tech Tube. Their first run of E813CCs was very microphonic. From what I have read, they are working hard to correct this. I'm hoping for good things from them in the future, but I'm not buying into it yet. There are too many great NOS tubes around for the same price or less.

Yeah i was there when they were testing it in my local music store in Blackburn...

Some exects from Techtube came to the shop and were testing them in a fender blues junior.

That was around 4 months ago so they may have overcome the microphonic problem.

They sounded very goood!!

Alex

 

[solarburn]

Bad news for Tech Tube quoted from another site:

Sorry to spoil everyone's party but the bad news is that Blackburn MicroTech who manufacture Techtube valves has just gone into administration (they finally ran out of money)
see here
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.u...60.Historic_Blackburn_firm_in_administration/

A real bummer for all those working and their families. Sad really...

 

[MartyStrat54]

Well I saw it coming, it was just a matter of when.

Problematic, over-priced and in short supply sort of sums up why they went down the shitter.

Gee, I guess that means NOS tubes won't be going down in price like I had hoped.

 

[skeezix]

HI, all.... maybe this isn't the right place for it, but it looks like there are some real tuberheads here, who can hopefully help me out.... I just scored a great deal on a 2553 - $250 - Yowzah! - , and I know it had the original el34 power tubes in it (no markings of any kind, halo getter, etc), so i swapped those out for some GT-el34M's. I popped out the pre's, and in the PI slot there was a 12ax7 that just said ecc83M down the side of it in red, no mfr markings of any kind. Had an extra plastic plate set over the plate assemblies, and a square or diamond shaped getter. Chinese, maybe? I pulled the other two and didn't really pay any attention at first, ad swapped in some sovteks i had floating around, just to compare. Hmmm. It got more gain, but not as nice. Not bad, just not as nice. So i checked the ones that were in it. No mfr name or logos, a halo getter, and at the bottom, two rows of three character date codes in grey:

HA1
A7C​

and they have a longer plate assembly.
Were these three 12ax7's the originals as well?
When I popped these back in, it just..... shimmers. Like I said, I lost a little gain, but only a smidge, and it still has a buttload of gain anyway. But these have it all over the sovteks. The sovteks have more lows and highs, it seems, that sort've death-metal scoop tone. Which I don't mind, but it's not really my cup of scotch. And they're not as easy to dial in the mids without it getting nasal.

These others have a real even sound all across the spectrum, and even w pre-gain, and gain master dimed, i still get real nice definition, it's creamy but not muddy, and every not in a chord is clear without overriding the other notes, y'know? It's like no matter where you set the knobs, the sound is nice. Makes me want to play all day. (You'd think I'd get better. Nope. What's up with that?)

What the hell are those?? I want more. Are they just the stock tubes marshall used in '87? (or maybe '88 - the serial # is 087601, which might be late in the run). Maybe i just got real lucky with these. Any ideas?

Any suggestions from current tube producers? Chinese? EH, 'Tung-Sol', 'Mullard', svetlana, .....?

Thanks in advance for your time and attention to my query
Skee

 

[Jae]

Yeah, I've bought from GreenGirl. She started out small, but has gotten bigger. I wonder how some of these people come across all of these tubes.

Tina used to be small, but now she is selling lots of eight, xf2 Double O Mullards NIB for thousands of dollars and she has like four lots! Then she has lots of four of the same tubes for sale and a bunch of preamp tubes.

I talked to an EBAY husband and wife team and the husband was out almost all of the time looking for possible buy sites. Homes, businesses, estate sales, any place he might find tubes or other items to sell. He would come home for three days, help his wife do an inventory and set pricing. Then on the road he went again and she would set up all of the listings and handle the shipping. They make 85 to 100K a year, but is it worth it? (Oh, no kids.)

I bought from Greengirl too. I think they have some good tubes. I got three NOS Sylvanias from her. I would buy from you again, just because of the positive experience in terms of fast shipping and just a positive vibe in dealing with customers.

But yeah, there seems to be a big market for tubes these days, especially the vintage ones. Not sure if it's because I always look for them, but some of these people are sitting on piles of NOS good tubes to sell. One guy I bought off was really good with the service aspect. Gringogrande I think and marantz as well as this other guy from the UK I believe Paulghifi. Paulghifi actually sent me a brand new Mullard tube free of charge because the other cracked at the base when I played it for a few days.

There is a reason why some of these guys are power sellers and have 100% positive feedback.

I've also been ebaying ALOT these days for tubes and might even be bidding against some of you guys here. If the tubes are good I do the eagle thing at the last 10 seconds before the auction ends and it works 80% of the time.

Happy budding for tubes!

 

[MartyStrat54]

SKEEZIX, I'm pretty sure you have some 7th Generation Chinese tubes. When Joe (Solarburn) reads this he can confirm this for me. A lot of people like them in their amps. They are still available from certain online tube vendors, so they can be obtained if you want more of them.

 

[MartyStrat54]

JAE, although I am still buying 12AX7 tubes, I have sort of went into an EL34 buying mode. I will say that it would be nice if you and I were the only two bidders on EBAY, but it just ain't so.:eek2::eek2::eek2:

 

[solarburn]

SKEEZIX, I'm pretty sure you have some 7th Generation Chinese tubes. When Joe (Solarburn) reads this he can confirm this for me. A lot of people like them in their amps. They are still available from certain online tube vendors, so they can be obtained if you want more of them.

I think so too. Pretty sure these are older 7th generation Chinese tubes. The newest Chinese offerings such as Ruby 12AX7AC7 HG and Ruby 12AX7AC5 HG+ are what players are finding sound good and from what I here aren't so hit and miss batch wise, more consistent and quieter.

I have some AC5's and they are a good high gain offering which I've used in my DSL. They've been ousted by NOS at this time though hehe. They will make great back ups when I am poorer and out of NOS when that happens...

 

[Jae]

Ok, I got an NOS Sylvania 12ax7 today. It has the black plates with a square or rectangular getter. The tube looked like it was in mint shape.

However, when i put it into the V1 slot of the preamp it sounded great then suddenly cut our. I was scared, thinking the OT or something blew. I looked at the Sylvania while it was still in the V1 and noticed it was glowing ALOT more than the other tubes. i guess that is normal, not sure. Then I took it out and put the Mullard IEC back in and it worked fine.

I put the Sylvania back in and the same problem, no sound, just hum. I moved the Sylvania back to V2 and it started working fine with the Mullard IEC in V1. Then I moved the Sylvania back to V1 and put another Sylvania (grey plate) in V2. It worked fine again.

Does anyone know what the heck could be going on here? Is it the blackplate not being compatible with the V1 slot? Again, it is a JMP'78 with cascaded preamp. Not sure.. confused!!??

 

[MartyStrat54]

There's something wrong with the tube. It probably has an intermittent short. It should work fine in any position. I'm trying to deal with a old dumb guy who sold me some tubes and two won't pass the Grid Emission test. He can't seem to understand the concept of that.

I would try it in your other amp and see what it does in there. If it has problems, contact the seller. However, when you don't have a tester and you tell them you installed it in an amp, they can use that against you in resolving the matter. Some sellers state, "Not responsible for how the tube will work in your equipment. All equipment is different. No returns, no warranty. As is."

 

[MartyStrat54]

I still haven't heard from Edicron. However, there is a lot of info on them. I did find out that they obtained and distributed NOS tubes under their label. This is to include Mullard and RFT.

While I was looking for info, I came across this link that had already been posted. It came up on the search engine, because RFT made tubes for Edicron. In the back of my mind, I thought I had remembered seeing this. I was going to look up that link here on the thread, but it came up during my search and sure enough, Edicron was a buyer of RFT tubes. For old times sake, here is the link.

Die Geschichte der EL 34 - Seite 4 - in der DDR von RFT produzierte EL34

Here are the RFT Edicron's.

Here are some Mullard Edicron's.

Just to let you know, the seller of the Edicron's I bought lives in Turkey. It was only $12 to ship, so that is one of the reasons I decided to bid. I sent another email to Edicron and I hope I get a reply. One thing is for certain, they did in fact sell Mullard and RFT tubes under their name. I hope I get lucky and my $41 gets me a matched quad of some real EL-34's.

As much as I know about tubes, there is so much more to know. I might have heard of Edicron before, but it didn't stick. They are a huge distributor of tubes worldwide from the U.K. Apparently they do quite nicely in this very competitive market (see Joe's post about Tech Tube failing). From what I gather, they retest the tubes they buy and provide complete relabeling services for their customers. Some of their tube are made to their specifications. Anyway, they are huge and I never really knew anything about them. They've been around since 1958, so I think it's safe to say that the pre-80's Edicron 12AX7's are to be snagged if you happen to find some and that goes for any other tubes made before 1980 as well.

 

[skeezix]

SKEEZIX, I'm pretty sure you have some 7th Generation Chinese tubes. When Joe (Solarburn) reads this he can confirm this for me. A lot of people like them in their amps. They are still available from certain online tube vendors, so they can be obtained if you want more of them.

.........Pretty sure these are older 7th generation Chinese tubes. The newest Chinese offerings such as Ruby 12AX7AC7 HG and Ruby 12AX7AC5 HG+ are what players are finding sound good and from what I here aren't so hit and miss batch wise, more consistent and quieter. (

Wow!! Thanks for the info, guys. Would these tubes have been available around '95 or '97-ish?
I ask because i have no idea about the amp's "provenance" (if that's the right word?). I got it at a yard/estate sale. Apparently Grandma had died, and the family had to drive down from Oregon. Nobody knew for sure where the amp in her garage had come from, except the lady said "It must have been my uncle Jimmy's, he was in a band before, but he died in a bike wreck when I was like, 12, or 13... so that was, 1995, '96, maybe? I don't think anybody's used it since then."

They had already offed a different Marshall ("but that one was black and gold"), a 4by cab, and an SG or SG-clone ("You know like in 'School of Rock'? I love that movie!") for $200 each. Mine was an extra $50 cause of the anniversary tag on the front. "So, it's like a special edition or something, right?"

I really did try to explain that, working or not, it was worth a helluva lot more than two-fitty, but they just wanted to wrap everything up, quick-like.

It's pristine - that Tolex is perfect (although it needed a coat of Armor-All), no scratches on the faceplate, nothin'.

Sorry for babbling onandonandonandon, I'm just really jazzed about this little baby.

I saw a pic of a generic "Chinese 12ax7a" that was dead nuts like the one I have with the red stencil on it, complete to the extra metal retainer/support cage they put around the plates, so I guess that pegs that one.

As for these 7th-gen ones, what are the benefits/drawbacks to having the longer plate? Is that for tone or longevity, or....?

Oh, one other thing; when I power it up, the 7th-gen ones FLASH really bright, and then dim down, and slowly brighten up again. Is that normal? Or is it a sign they're going out? The other ones don't do that.

Okay, wait... one other other thing. She came with the full-metal jacket tube covers with the springs inside, yeah? And it seems like, if I play with those off, it gets a tiny bit more gain. Does that make sense? What's up with that?

Anyway, thanks again to both of you; big ups for the info and the prompt reply. (I owe both of you a beer now).

--Skee

 

[solarburn]

Wow!! Thanks for the info, guys. Would these tubes have been available around '95 or '97-ish?
I ask because i have no idea about the amp's "provenance" (if that's the right word?). I got it at a yard/estate sale. Apparently Grandma had died, and the family had to drive down from Oregon. Nobody knew for sure where the amp in her garage had come from, except the lady said "It must have been my uncle Jimmy's, he was in a band before, but he died in a bike wreck when I was like, 12, or 13... so that was, 1995, '96, maybe? I don't think anybody's used it since then."

They had already offed a different Marshall ("but that one was black and gold"), a 4by cab, and an SG or SG-clone ("You know like in 'School of Rock'? I love that movie!") for $200 each. Mine was an extra $50 cause of the anniversary tag on the front. "So, it's like a special edition or something, right?"

I really did try to explain that, working or not, it was worth a helluva lot more than two-fitty, but they just wanted to wrap everything up, quick-like.

It's pristine - that Tolex is perfect (although it needed a coat of Armor-All), no scratches on the faceplate, nothin'.

Sorry for babbling onandonandonandon, I'm just really jazzed about this little baby.

I saw a pic of a generic "Chinese 12ax7a" that was dead nuts like the one I have with the red stencil on it, complete to the extra metal retainer/support cage they put around the plates, so I guess that pegs that one.

As for these 7th-gen ones, what are the benefits/drawbacks to having the longer plate? Is that for tone or longevity, or....?

Oh, one other thing; when I power it up, the 7th-gen ones FLASH really bright, and then dim down, and slowly brighten up again. Is that normal? Or is it a sign they're going out? The other ones don't do that.

Okay, wait... one other other thing. She came with the full-metal jacket tube covers with the springs inside, yeah? And it seems like, if I play with those off, it gets a tiny bit more gain. Does that make sense? What's up with that?

Anyway, thanks again to both of you; big ups for the info and the prompt reply. (I owe both of you a beer now).

--Skee

Keep the shield on. Some tubes will flash like that. My Mullard AT7 does that too. Nothing to worry about as long as it works right.

My AC5's are short plate not long plate. Another reason I think you have the older generation Chinese offering.

Read what this guy says about Chinese preamp tubes. Not everyone likes Chinese tubes. I think the newer ones are better than older offerings.

Many amp companies, like Boogie and Bogner, design their products using Chinese preamp tubes. The only reason I can think of why they do this, is if the amp still sounds ok with these tubes, it can't get any worse. In my ears the Chinese preamp tubes are the worst I've ever heard. If you are a high gain freak that loves piercing and buzzy (!) sounding highs and clarity isn't your biggest concern, then buy them right away. But if you are looking for tone, decent gain, reliability, dynamic and non buzzing sound then please leave them alone. In my opinion almost any tube is an upgrade from a Chinese preamp tube.

Same guy says this later in his writing:

I read that the current production of the preamp tubes in China have been improved.

He also gushes over JJ ECC83S's which killed any sort of dynamic playing on either channel of my amp and dulled it to where I flat lined while playing. I actually like the ECC803S in V1 though but thats it for JJ's in the preamp section hehe.

So take his view with a grain of salt and decide for yourself by using them. I actually try them and make my own opinion of any tube I'm interested in. Course there are some opines here I trust in.

 

[RiverRatt]

Here's a weird coincidence. My uncle was at an antique mall about 30 minutes from my office, and found a box of tubes. I drove up today to check it out, and it was a bunch of oddball TV tubes. But, as I was browsing around, I found that box from the estate sale a couple of weeks ago! I passed on it then, but the guy who bought it let me pick out a few of the tubes. No real treasures, but one was an Arcturus 12AZ7, which I've never seen in person, a Tung-Sol 12AT7, and a Sylvania 12BH7. Both the 12AZ7 and the 12AT7 look like Raytheon short black plate tubes. The 12AZ7 has an extra mica spacer at the top. All these things have a gain factor of 60-ish. I thought the Arcturus was neat - cool logo and it was in its original box.