NOS Tubes - Ecstasy or Agony


I have been running tube amps for many years and have built a number of SETs and other tube amps, kit's mostly.  My main power tubes have been 2A3's and 300bs and I have used mostly new manufacture tubes including JJ's and EML 300b's (great tube btw).  I did use NOS driver tubes and headphone amp tubes.  Never really had a problem.

I just transitioned to a Don Sach's 6sn7 based preamp and McCormack SS power amp.  The preamp is very nice and sounds great with Shugang tubes. Of course, I wanted to try some NOS tubes, went online and did my research.  Now the DS2 is a great preamp, the drawback is it uses 4 6sn7s and so I need to get pairs.  Would  have love to get my hands on the Dehavilland, uses one tube!

First Pair - I ordered some Sylvania's from TC Tubes. Advertised as 50's vintage, ,when I received  them they were marked 60's. Hmmm.  So I tried them and they sounded pretty darn good except after a couple hours one of them developed a high pitched hum, like a florescent bulb. So I sent them back.  

Second Pair - ordered from Brent Jesse - has a good rep online and a really informative website.  Received them and one was dead on arrival, they were also clearly of different construction. So they are going back.

Next will try Andy at Vintage Tubes Services, he also has a solid  reputation so hopefully I can get something that works.

I am curious what experiences others have had. Maybe its COVID, or are these dealers just unreliable, or is just 6sn7's?  Really thought I could just buy some NOS tubes and experiment, I can't even get two to work.

I don't really want to disparage these dealers but I do think all the claims of testing are maybe overblown.
drewh1
I only buy my NOS tubes from Andy Bowman at Vintage Tube Services.  He is the only one I trust and his has kept his prices in line down.  Others have raised their prices.
I've had very few tubes fail over the years, and 2 were new (a Sovtek KT88 and a new Gold Lion rectifier)...the other was a JAN Phillips 12AT7 that was replaced by thetubestore. All my piles of NOS GEs, Sylvania "Chrome Domes," etc., have performed perfectly...including those abused in tube guitar amps as well as hifi gear. I'd say tubes generally have been pretty damn reliable over the last 50 years or so I've been using 'em.
Goose - please stop recommending Andy, he is a month behind on orders and I want to get my tubes before anyone else orders! :)

Actually, I spoke to him today and he is holding off on new orders until he gets caught up. 

Old thread, but I found it because it’s something I’m thinking about right now. After 30 or more years of doing nothing but all tubes, and primarily “NOS” small signal tubes (never bothered with “NOS” power tubes), I stopped completely about 5 years ago, sold my tube preamp, tube cd player and mono tube amps and went to a naim cd player and a Plinius solid state integrated amp. I’ve never been happier. BUT, recently, having become obsessed with headphones, I bought myself a McIntosh tube headphone amp and, of course, started to think about tube rolling. As another poster said above, over the years I have had new tubes that didn’t sound good or didn’t last, old tubes that didn’t sound good or didn’t last, new tubes that were reliable and sounded good, old tubes that were reliable, some of which sounded great. I can say that newer production tubes are usually the most reliable, even if they’re not sprinkled with 1960’s era fairy dust and don’t give you that special something you can sometimes get with old tubes*

Anyway, as soon as I started rolling in old tubes, I immediately also began worrying about and listening for whether or not the tubes were sounding tired, rather than listening to and enjoying my music. This heightened anxiety over the state of the tubes detracting from my enjoyment of music is one of the reasons I gave up on tubes 5 years ago (Post Tube Stress Disorder?) - to me, it’s not worth it. There are plenty of good current production tubes available, and that is what most manufacturers (other than a few ‘boutiques’) are using to voice their equipment. Of course, with the current political climate, Russian tubes are suddenly become scarce, so even good old reliable (and, IMHO, very nice sounding) eh tubes are starting to command higher prices. Better stock up now so that in 2033, you can auction off your NOS electro-harmonix gold pin 12at7’s for $200/ea.! In all seriousness, having put myself through the mill the last few weeks - cv4024, 6201, RFT, GE, RCA, etc., etc.), I’ve put back the oem McIntosh branded (they won’t say, but pretty sure they’re JJ) tubes, and that’s where I’m going to stay for a while. I might order a set of eh gold pins as a back up, but I do not think that I can bear the constant agony of dealing with so-called ‘NOS’ tubes in the hopes of finding that magic combo which, for 10 minutes or so, might provide musical ecstasy, before I remember that they’re 40, 50 or 60 years old and I start listening for signs of fatigue. 
 

YMMV, IMHO, just my $.03, etc., ad nauseum.

*NOS should mean NEW old stock, but it appears that the term is now used for any tube made before ~1990, whether or not it is actually new (as in unused). Reputable dealers who aren’t certain will often state that the tubes ‘test’ NOS, rather than declaring them actual NOS, but it seems to me that for the most part the term has taken on a secondary, incorrect meaning for use in describing any tube that isn’t new production, regardless of its actual provenance. 

The longest lasting NOS tubes I have ever purchased came from Andy. It's worth the wait.