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  3. 125078-1452

Bad NOS tubes...

I just want to put this out there...as much as I would not like to...my head says otherwise. Tube buyers beware!!!

On 3/7/16 I bought 6 NOS Mullard 12au7 4003 tubes for my preamp from a vender out of Minesing, Ontario Canada... under the store front name of ’mullard.com’ http://www.mullardtubes.com/Mullard-ECC82-12AU7-CV4003/?ID=0&ProductID=153 and ’ tube products.com’ http://www.tubeaudioproducts.com/Mullard-Brimar/ProductDetail.aspx?CatID=65&ProductID=153#

The owner is one Alfred Kayser. On his site/sites he states all of his tubes are tested and matched for best performance values. Well,I went ahead and ordered and received said tubes. After 2-3 months of use I started to hear unacceptable levels of noise from my speakers,you know, the dirty sound of that dreaded tube noise of a scratching, distorted, dirty volume pot type of noise,which totally infringes upon the music. I went ahead and called Alfred and asked him about it and he just responded there is "nothing he could do" for me. Hey,no problem,but he advertised full-up tested tubes. If it was only one bad tube,I could understand,I’m a realist...things happen.

But!!!

Long story short,I came to find out that four of the six tubes are defective and are not what I paid for. Two are fine. So the moral of this story is...When buying tubes,do not go the cheaper route,find and use a "reputable" tube vender and save yourself some time,money and aggravation. Of course I will never use this guy again for any of my audio needs... Hope this is of some help to the Audiogon membership.

aolmrd1241
Post removed 
jea48
4,313 posts
 

It appears the pins on a miniature tube are made of Kovar.

I posted a message asking the question and here is one of the responses I received.

The term "steel" doesn’t always get used in the strictest metallurgical sense. I think steel is commonly used to describe the pins because they’re usually quite magnetic. The material I’ve seen referenced in tube manuals and such is "kovar", a nickel/cobalt/iron alloy with coef of thermal expansion similar to borosilicate glass. The alloy also bonds well to glass and is apparently magnetic too. Seems if one believes magnetic conductors distort music signals, tubes should not be in the signal path...LOL.


http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/tubes/messages/26/269123.html


http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/tubes/messages/26/269119.html


derrickengineer
36 posts
 
How is a seller of NOS tubes able to know or predict when a tube goes bad after it tests as new ? If 4 tubes went bad out of the six tubes, how is it possible to know that there are 4 bad tubes sold to you and 2 good tubes sold to you? Ive bought over 100 tubes NOS and new.  Some new tubes were bad right from the start/1st time put into a preamp, noisy but they still tested as new. Rough shipping damage? Any tube purchase is a cointoss whether NOS or new imo.
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