@wharfy, i dont know what the real price of these tubes is, but tubedfepot.com typically sells at 2x-4x the legit retail price and even buy from retailers, just like any end-user, and jack up the price. their testing is minimal. theyre great for new production, especially for guitar amps, but for old stock their preice gouging and minmal expertise is a last resort. they also mis-identify OLD stock tubes, making basic mistakes like asserting that philips-labelled EI yugoslavia tubes, of which they sent me several pics clearly showing EI yugo codes, are really philips. https://www.tubedepot.com/products/7dj8-pcc88
after i informed them, they made no correction.
for old stock tubes, the big three are brent jessee, jim mcshane (mostly retired), and andy/vintage tube services. andy takes a very, very long time, but hes quite strict.
there are some excellent second-tier dealers as well, like tctubes.
Anyone ever have, use or hear this tube?
I always thought that the pinnacle of the ecc82/12au7 type tube was the Telefunken ecc802s. Even better than the Amperex 7316. But, I recently found out that there is an extra special designation for some ecc802's dubbed the G73R. These are supposed to be unmatched in quality and longevity, said to last 40,000+ hours! Anybody familiar with, heard or own these things??