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Tubes for Cary V12 amps.

I have a few Cary V12 amps. When I bought them they came from the factory with Ruby EL 34's.  I have tried Winged C's, Electro Harmonix and JJ EL-34's and I have lot liked them as much as the Ruby's. I did ask Cary about the Ruby tubes. They said they designed the amp using those tubes and that is probably why the amp sounded best with those tubes.  So I have stuck with the Ruby's since (Ruby EL-34 BHT). But when I went to reorder the 36 tubes I need for the three amps I was told that the factory that produces the Ruby tubes in China had a fire and isn't currently making tubes and there are very few out there to be found. Also no word on when production will resume.

Anyone out there have any luck with tubes other than those I mentioned (Winged C's, Electro Harmonix and JJ) ?
whataboutbob1

Showing 4 responses by decooney

decooney
2,313 posts
 
@whataboutbob1 I use to have a V12R and YES the EL34-BSTR tubes are going to sound the best in that amp, truly. They are/were made by Shuguang for Ruby and sounded really nice. Heard various things about them having trouble rebuilding the factory after the fire, political or something.

If I were in your shoes and still had my V12R, maybe try the latest from PSVANE, you can buy them in Octets. Try with one amp, see how it goes first before buying for the other two amps. Viva has them "New Ip Matched Octet Psvane EL34C HiFi Series Vacuum Tubes". https://www.vivatubes.com/new-ip-matched-octet-psvane-el34c-hifi-series-vacuum-tubes/

BIAS:
Best not to trust the LEDs, use the meter instead. The manuals were not updated on the last versions of the V12/V12R, and there is no need to go 280ma per side on those amps. My local Tech and I did some testing and figured out 200-230ma is good and no need to run it up to 280ma. 200-230ma (per side) will save the tubes longer and it still sounds nice.

Good Luck.
decooney
2,313 posts
 
^^^ With TWELVE output tubes per v12 amplifier, and he has three amps to deal with, NOS tubes is not a realistic option buying thirty six tubes.

OP, If you can find sets of the stock Rubys, those particular shuguang EL34-BSTR output tubes are very good with this specific amp. It was designed and voiced with them this way.

The front-end input and driver tubes is where you want to spend your $ on really good NOS. The EL84 input tubes up front truly impact the sound. The secondary 6922s or 12BZ7 (R model only) drivers are next in order. 
decooney
2,313 posts
 
Agree, and KT77s would be nice in a Cary V12 / V12R, particularly when the old stock Audio1 coupling caps are swapped out for better ones. The amp really responds well to this, Mundorf EVO Supreme Silver-Gold even better.


decooney
2,313 posts
 
"Sometimes you get what you pay for and personally I avoid power amps with lots of output tubes for just that reason. Also why I got away from 300B amps the retubing costs."


@jond while I sometimes miss and look back to my former amps, your note is a good reminder to myself for similar reasons. I moved from large stereo amps to smaller individual mono amps with larger transformers, larger-fewer output tubes. Tradeoffs come with it too.  
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