How expensive are best NOS tubes ? And how difficult to find ?


Phono stages, preamps and power amps. Any non-Chinese adequate substitutes? I know that if you have Lamm, Vladimir has a few sets of Russian tubes in stock for each particular unit, and it is not really expensive to retube them. But if you have, say, VAC or CAT or Atma-Sphere and want best longest lasting and most reliable tubes, what then ? Don't ask me why not Chinese, I can't talk about it here except that I don't trust their quality control.
inna

Showing 1 response by glennewdick

One more thing to consider is the tube equipment you are potentially going to buy.  tube manufactures will run the voltages at different levels depending on the use and power they are trying to get. lightly taxed tubes will last significantly longer then tubes run close to their max. Small signal tubes like preamp tubes i've seen last more then a decade. I've pulled tubes out of old military gear that have been used continuously for 50-60 years. its all on how hard they are run and the application. of course original build quality, and that area modern tubes are making great strides.Like others have mentioned.


Glen