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 2 responses by roxy54

inna,

larryi makes a good point, and that is why I usually only but from Andy at Vintage Tube Services. He tests every NOS tube extensively on a variety of parameters on testing equipment that he owns that most tube sellers don't own. There are exceptions. I did buy a couple of fantastic Telefunken 6922 tubes from Upscale Audio that were matched (hopefully).

To answer your other question inna, Andy, and other dealers I'm sure, travel to auctions and estate sales etc. to buy lots of tubes that can later be evaluated for sale. Andy was just going to one when I spoke with him a few weeks ago.