Tube equipment reviews

What bothers me about this situation is that some of the best NOS tubes are now stratospherically priced and will soon, I expect, be unavailable. It doesn't do me a lot of good to hear how well a matched pair of Tung-Sol round plate 6SN7s worked and then see a pair would cost me over $250 if I could even find them.

A review of a tube amp with such tubes wouldn't seem very fair to me.

A hobbyist new to tubes has a lot of learning to do. Sure, there is now info available on the Net where before you had to find an actual person with experience who was willing to share. But I'm guessing that the guys who know most keep quiet about the best tubes, just like the old fisherman keeps his best pool a secret. That leaves the rest of us with severely lightened wallets after a long series of trials.

And much gratitude for the kind of tip we can get here !

Some modern tubes get very good press, though--Valve Art, some Flying C, and others. My hope and prayer is that before the best NOS is completely used up, these manufacturers will reach quality standards high enough that in years to come we won't see a bunch of tube amp owners standing around glumly at shows and muttering about what music used to be.

You're a generous sort, Mprime. Very cool.

I have a pal with the same preamp as yours and he's looking for NOS tubes for it now. He has tried Ken-Rad black glass but found the sound congested ; maybe they were not the staggered plate version.

I have a pair of Brimars for him to try when he gets a chance.

My pal has consigned his AE-3 to a local dealer for sale :-( This means I won't get to hear it with the Brimars.

He did like it with NOS Raytheons, and the 60's flavour, not even the premium support rod kind. He thought 60's GE side getters sounded a bit thin. His final pick was a JAN Philips pair, which gave him the openness he wanted and a bit more bass than the Raytheons. These are the tubes which cost a bomb from AES / Cary, but which you can find more cheaply on eBay.