Any other tubes out there?


I always see ads for mullard,amperex,and telefunken tubes. Now I am sure each have there merit, but I was wondering if anybody has listened to other nos tubes like Ei,telsa,rft,mazda. I don't see these for sale as much as the ones mentioned. Anyone out there care to shed there input? Thanks Bret
south43
All the tubes, you mentioned, are good sounding tubes. However they are not as good sounding, as the tubes, you keep seeing for sale, nor do they last as long. The real sleeper of NOS tubes, are the Valvo's. They do not command the exoirbitant prices of most premium NOS, but have wonderful sonics. From the 6dj8, to the CCa, the family sound, is the same. The gold pin versions, sound more refined, or cohesive, and they are quieter.
Thanks everyone for there advise. I plan on doing some tube rolling in the near future for my LS7 and SF dac. Good listening.
6bq5 is correct, to my knowledge, about the Ei's. They used to come stock with Jadis preamps before the war came. I have a set that came with my JP80 and a spare reserve set, but they're in storage since I started using Telefunkens, which are just plain a world better and much more long-lasting. Tonally, the Ei's were similar in some respects to the Telefunkens, maybe a shade warmer, but not nearly as dynamic or resolving. I have also used Teslas (12AU7s) in my Audio Logic DAC; they have a warmer, less bright sound than the stock Mullards (probably Brimars?) that AL likes to use. Again, I replaced them with Telefunkens, and the Teslas are back in the drawer for good. Teslas sounded OK, but dark compared to the more balanced (in my system) Telefunkens. The Teslas didn't last particularly long, either, compared to the Teles, which I believe is a common complaint about most all of the tubes made after the 60s.
Stick to the NOS tubes from the 50 or 60's. Anything newer than them are total waste of money and time. If you are serious about audio, I would like to suggest that you should stock-up a few of those Telefunken, Amperex, Mullard, Philips, Seimens etc. As for myself, I have Telefunken, Mullard, Amperex, Seimens, Miniwatt, GE, Sylvania etc in my collection. I do a lot of tube rolling in my ARC SP-11 Mk2 preamp in order to get the right sound. A small piece of advice to or the would be ARC preamp owners. Forget all those so-called factory matched Sovtek 6922 tubes, they are total garbage even they are matched by ARC. The tubes are garbage to start with and even after some critical matching by ARC, they are still the same matched garbage Sovtek 6922 tubes. When I first got my SP-11 Mk2, all the tubes inside are matched ARC Sovtek 6922. They made the SP-11 sounds horrible, sounds like a transistor preamp !!! I nearly sold the SP-11. Luckily I got some Amperex Bugle Boy 6DJ8 tubes. I installed the tubes inside the SP-11 and even the tubes were still cold. A big WOW!!! I'm going to keep the SP-11 for a long, long time.
South43,
Some of the tube MFG you mentioned are the reason that you don't hear of them. Ei is where the old Telefunken equipment went when they sold the equipment, and most of the tubes used in current production gear from the mid 1980s through 1993~5 (when the war started) came from the Ei factory. Mazda Tubes are very old and most of the "modern" tubes, like the 12AX7, 6DJ8, etc. were never made by Mazda.
Hope this helps your question.
Go yo www.audioasylum--click on "tubes" and do a search for whatever brand you are interested in. It's pretty much all right there. Also, check out www.thetubestore and www.vacuum-tubes-audio. Hope this helps!