mihcmac Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Pepper Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 (edited) Euro Tubes J J's Edited September 7, 2020 by Sgt. Pepper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mihcmac Posted September 7, 2020 Author Share Posted September 7, 2020 (edited) No one in the U S is making vacuum tubes, all Russian, Slovakian or Chinese... No one seem to know who McIntosh outsources their tubes to.. Edited September 7, 2020 by mihcmac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larsongs Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 (edited) Check The Tube Store.... Choices from good Budget Tubes to Best VOS High End Tubes... Edited September 7, 2020 by Larsongs 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merciful-evans Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 I was curious as to the manufacturing process and found these: The first is in Czech from 1973, but you can see that the process is labour intensive but still needing plenty of dedicated kit as well (the last part shows cathode tubes for old TVs) The next one is small scale production https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzyXMEpq4qw (this one wont embed) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badbluesplayer Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 There's supposedly one other Chinese factory that's making tubes right now. It's small and they make very high quality stuff that's all rebranded. The main Chinese factory is the only manufacturer who continues to make improvements to the manufacturing process. Egnater had 3000 JJ 12ax7's go bad in the field about 6 or 8 years ago. I can't imagine how much that cost them. I always use a Chinese 12AX7 tube in any place where there's an "elevated cathode voltage", which is, in a Marshall, everything after V1 and before the phase inverter. Otghe tubes are inconsistent. Fenders don't eat tubes in that way. Tung Sol 12AX7's are prob the best sounding tube and I use them in V1 of all amps except Marshalls. I use a JJ for them. JJ's are Marshally sounding. Sovtek LPS's are good for phase inverters. NOS tubes are o.k. The only ones that are consistently useable for customers' amps are the JAN 12AT7's. I don't use NOS tubes other than that. There's nobody to stand behind them. Except me. Anybody who uses NOS tubes has to have a tube tester anyway, and tube testers don't always find every problem. And they don't test whether a tube sounds good, just whether it's shorted and if it puts out signal. Most NOS tubes have been sorted through many times and most NOS tubes are the rejects from decades of sorting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveFord Posted September 7, 2020 Share Posted September 7, 2020 Thetubestore.com is a real good source. They keep saying that JJ's have got their kwality control under control but who really knows. Too true about NOS, they'd pop in a new tube and stick the used one back in the box. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mihcmac Posted September 7, 2020 Author Share Posted September 7, 2020 (edited) My old Friend at El Rancho trying to find a 6L6 for a Saturday night jam, or a rectifier tube for my TV so I could watch Walt on Sunday. Edited September 7, 2020 by mihcmac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twang Gang Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 (edited) About 4 years ago my Rivera amp started getting noisy. Rivera recommended using Russian Svetlana tubes. I replaced all 4 power tubes (6V6 GTs) and all 5 pre-amp tubes (12AX7s) with tubes from The Tube Store in Canada. They matched the triode sections very well in the pre-amp tubes. I remember there was a problem with one of the Power tubes and they replaced it free as they had advertised that they would all match and one didn't. It has been very quite and worked flawlessly since, although it does not get real heavy usage. Edited September 8, 2020 by Twang Gang 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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