6922 tube selection

04-03-15: Ebm
Call Andy ASAP for the only honest tube guy.

Looks like Ebm got taken to the cleaners buying off Craigslist, Ebay ... LOL!!!

I buy majority of tubes from Brent Jesse. Also use PCX, Upscale and TubeWorld. Once I bought 6H30-DR off Ebay from a dealer in Russia and they were fakes so lesson learned.

Currently my favorite e88cc are 60's Siemen and Telefunken. Both are dynamic, tight imaging, transparent, airy and dead neutral. I also have 60's Siemens grey plate Cca but with current speakers, I prefer the e88cc.

04-04-15: Quincy
Very good comments and feed back. Thank you. NOS is just that; NOS. No one 'really' knows where they have been or how and if they have been used. No one knows how many times they were bought and sold through middlemen and liquidators. I agree that any new tube can sit on a shelf for 100 years with no issue, but apply the voltage and the clock is ticking. NOS has been out of production for so long (~50 years) one would hope that those still making tubes have developed some manufacturing advancements to insure better quality control. Once again... Thanks!

That's precisely why I only purchase NOS from reputable dealers.

In order for advancement, you need demand that triggers investment. I think demand for tubes are probably higher ~50 years ago so I doubt any recent break through.

Also some raw materials use to make NOS are ban so new tube quality suffers in terms of SQ and durability.

I've been rolling tubes forever and haven't found many or any new small signal tubes beat a NOS. Now power tubes are a different story.