6SN7GT VT231 TUBES


I love the old VT231 tubes!

The best sounding 6SN7GT ever...Sylvania, Raytheon, RCA, Ken Rad Etc.  They may still be found, if you have $$$!!  Where can I find true NOS VT231s?  Any favorites that I missed? 

(TS never made a VT231 - but their old black glass tubes with oval micas sound great!)

128x128paul_lindemann

I bought most of them through Ebay from 2018 to 2022.

 

Most of them were good.

 

I have all the tubes you mentioned including TS bgrp.

 

Now my favorite are 6f8g tubes which sounds fuller than vt231.

 

I may have the most comprehensive collection of 6sn7 or variants.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/shootout-of-nos-6sn7-tubes

 

I have 50 different kinds and total more than 120 pairs.

 

But I do not sell my tubes. They are my lifetime collection.

 

 

Thomas

I don’t use these tubes, but what’s the point of responding to a question with essentially, ‘those are great/amazing tubes, I have dozens of pairs that I’ll never use/sell/share, and good luck finding any because I’ve hoarded them all’…?? If the tubes are that good why not get them out there for others to enjoy? 

+1 for Raytheon VT-231’s! The Ken-Rad VT-231’s have the most solid bass of all the 6SN7’s I’ve heard in my Cary SLP05, Schiit Freya+, and Schiit Saga. The 5692 versions are smooth sounding. My favorite combos now are a quad of Raytheons in the Cary’s gain stage with by a set of CBS Hytron 5692’s in the XLR input buffer. With the Freya, black glass Ken Rads in the gain stage followed by the 5692’s in the buffer is my favorite combo, and I use a Sylvania 6SN7 GT JAN (“Bad Boy”) from the early 1950’s in the buffer. 
 

I have a quad of NIB red base GE 5692’s (RCA made) that I can’t wait to try as well, with several other JAN versions of RCA, Sylvania, etc.

 

For the money, the best I have heard are 1960’s NOS Sylvania 6SN7 GTB’s bought for about $35 apiece from Brent Jessee that have an exuberant, sparkly top. They sound significantly better than any of the new production tubes that I have experienced.

 

 I can’t recommend Brent Jessee enough, and will add that I have not yet experienced a bad experience buying NOS or used tubes from a variety of folks on Audiogon or US Audio Mart. I love the tonality of the 6SN7 tube, finding it to sound more natural and less hard than any 12AX7 tubes that I’ve live with for over 45 years (my favorites were Dutch Amperex, less dark than Telefunkens in my SP6B and Marantz 7C, as well as GE 5751’s used in the phono section of the Marantz).