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Original Tubes!

AuthorMessage
 

Jimmy
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 06:25 am:   

Just on the topic of original tubes, alot of people talk about their tubes being the original ones it was shipped with as a good thing. If its never been played thats fine. I bought my 210 130 with the original tubes in it, and for 3 months I was content with the sound. Eventually I decided to take it to the shop, where new tubes were the order of the day, and viola! The damn thing sounded awesome instead of not bad. The twenty five year old tubes in it had probably had it around the time I was born! So... what was the point of this rant? oh yeah, being precious about the original tubes (as I was) may not be such a good thing, especially if they fail...(now if I could only afford a recap who knows what it might sound like...)
Any thoughts? }
Damian
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - 02:36 pm:   

I had the same experience. I wonder if anyone on ebay will pay up for a set of Sylvania GCA7s :-)

I'm thinking about getting the caps replaced too, if I could just find a tech around here that will do it.
John Drexler
Posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 10:28 pm:   

Try a TV repairman who works on antique tube radios. I found one and he did mine. I gave him the schematic, and he checked everything for spec output...he found the output tranny was the incorrect one for my model MM (someone had replaced the original) and generally did a bang-up job...clean soldering, good quality caps, etc.
Hubert (hubert)
Username: hubert

Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Friday, November 10, 2006 - 11:47 am:   

I had toyed with the notion of trying out the NOS Sylvania's but I want to know if its worth the cost and trouble. I have a set of Mullards in my MM210-65 which sound just fine. They were recommend by Terry Loose when he recapped and retubed my amp. He is highly recommended and has done all of my amps. Anyway, I still may consider the Sylvania's just to end my curiosity. But having said that, I recently had Terry put in NOS RCA's in my FDR and 2 tubes had issues of which I was able to get replaced. There are alot of threads of other tubes tubes that people like, but haven't really found one that have high points for the Sylvania's. Maybe there was one, but haven't found it or a review or comparison of the Sylvania t other brands. I've read some pieces that say this particular Chinese tube sounds similar to the Mullard or to another NOS tube. Thanks
Mike Kaus (mm210)
Username: mm210

Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Saturday, November 11, 2006 - 04:25 am:   

I've got several sets of real sylvania 6ca7's that I bought back in the day and honestly, I use JJ's in my amp instead. The sylvania's don't really sound any better, they just may have a longer life span. I bought sveral quads of sylvania 6ca7's when they were $2.55 a piece so that I would have spares. Go figure. Anyway, the NOS stuff left today is pretty picked over and has been bounced around for along time. I'm almost to the point of saying NOS is a crap shoot unless you find a cache of them that have been SITTING undisturbed for 40 yrs and haven't been shipped back and forth across the country a dozen times(and who knows about that). I just make a habit of biasing my MM's a little on the cool side and they last pretty good.