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Where are you guys buying tubes?

4K views 23 replies 20 participants last post by  Ripper 
#1 ·
Not just the high end NOS stuff either but the current production stuff.

I was buying from Lord Valve or from L&M but I can't seem to get Herr Valve to send me a catalogue and L&M (locally anyway) doesn't seem to have much choice available.
 
#7 ·
Depending on what tubes you're after and/or how long you'd be willing to wait, I might be able to get some on one of my orders. I, alas, have to order from the USA since there are no real deals to be had in Canada.

My tubes of choice at the moment:

Sovtek 12AX7WC (surprisingly good in everything I've used them in)
Svetlana EL34 (nice for clarity, not very thick in the mids though)
JJ KT77 (thicker mids, strong sounding)
JJ 6V6
JJ EL84

And I plan to try some of the new TungSol 6V6 soon too.

Depending on the timing, I may have any of the above tubes on hand and I'd sell small numbers of them for reasonable prices.

Note to others in Canada but outside Calgary: please do not ask to buy tubes from me. This is only a courtesy I can afford to do for local folks once in a while. No offense intended.
 
#8 ·
JamesPeters said:
Depending on what tubes you're after and/or how long you'd be willing to wait, I might be able to get some on one of my orders. I, alas, have to order from the USA since there are no real deals to be had in Canada.

My tubes of choice at the moment:

Sovtek 12AX7WC (surprisingly good in everything I've used them in)
Svetlana EL34 (nice for clarity, not very thick in the mids though)
JJ KT77 (thicker mids, strong sounding)
JJ 6V6
JJ EL84

And I plan to try some of the new TungSol 6V6 soon too.

Depending on the timing, I may have any of the above tubes on hand and I'd sell small numbers of them for reasonable prices.

Note to others in Canada but outside Calgary: please do not ask to buy tubes from me. This is only a courtesy I can afford to do for local folks once in a while. No offense intended.

I just put some of those JJ KT77's in my Traynor YBA-1 and I am blown away. They are fantastic tubes.
 
#14 ·
Robert Bogdan said:
Not just the high end NOS stuff either but the current production stuff.

I was buying from Lord Valve or from L&M but I can't seem to get Herr Valve to send me a catalogue and L&M (locally anyway) doesn't seem to have much choice available.
Lord Valve only sends out his catalog about 4x a year. If you didn't get one, it's probably because he's about to send out a new one and you'll get it in a few weeks or sooner. I like his stuff best, but there is that border thing. I've never had a problem with the Tube Store, but I've heard about others who have on the forums. Pretty good results with this group though...
 
#15 ·
JamesPeters said:
Depending on what tubes you're after and/or how long you'd be willing to wait, I might be able to get some on one of my orders. I, alas, have to order from the USA since there are no real deals to be had in Canada.

My tubes of choice at the moment:

Sovtek 12AX7WC (surprisingly good in everything I've used them in)
Svetlana EL34 (nice for clarity, not very thick in the mids though)
JJ KT77 (thicker mids, strong sounding)
JJ 6V6
JJ EL84

And I plan to try some of the new TungSol 6V6 soon too.

Depending on the timing, I may have any of the above tubes on hand and I'd sell small numbers of them for reasonable prices.

Note to others in Canada but outside Calgary: please do not ask to buy tubes from me. This is only a courtesy I can afford to do for local folks once in a while. No offense intended.
James: Thanks for the generous offer. I may take you up on it. One additional question, do you do work on amps not your own? I'm thinking if I needed to get the amp re-biased?
 
#16 ·
Robert Bogdan said:
James: Thanks for the generous offer. I may take you up on it. One additional question, do you do work on amps not your own? I'm thinking if I needed to get the amp re-biased?
No problem, Robert.

I sometimes work on amps, but not a lot. If it just needs biasing, that's no biggie at all; I'd do that for you.
 
#17 ·
JamesPeters said:
No problem, Robert.

I sometimes work on amps, but not a lot. If it just needs biasing, that's no biggie at all; I'd do that for you.
Cool. I'm busier than hell right now but I'm thinking maybe at the end of summer/early fall I'm gonna go through my amps and see what I want to sell, what I want to keep and what needs a little TLC.
 
#21 ·
Groove tube BS

David St Hubbins said:
This reads more like an advertisement for Groove Tubes than a non-endorsement of The Tube Store.
Exactly! When that Groove Tube guy writes an article by the time you finish reading it you think he invented the electron all by himself!

Notice how those companies he endorses are all part of a small circle that sell or provide services to each other. Nothing wrong with that! It's always more pleasant to deal with friends and people you trust. Still, you sort of sense from the tone of this article that he thinks this is the ONLY circle of "good" companies. And that of course is illogical crap!

The Groove Tube claim about manufacturing their own products is one made for years by many electronic part manufacturers. The problem is that the definition of making your own part is often more from a marketing or legal viewpoint and not what most of us would assume when we hear their sales pitch.

Consider, most of the electrolytic capacitors in the world are made by a handful of Eastern companies. The industry slang term is the "Con Brothers", since their brand names all end in "-con" as in Chemi-con, Nichi-con or whatever.

There are a number of other brand names that don't actually make their own product. What they do is to place annual orders for ZILLIONS of different caps, enough to fill their entire product line. They then rent or "timeshare" one of the Con factories for a period of time long enough to manufacture their entire order. They have the caps branded with their name and logo, perhaps with their own distinctive colour sleeve.

Because they order in such huge volumes their costs are low enough to sell competively in the mainstream marketplace Sometimes their forecasts are not loose enough to handle an unexpected run on certain specific cap values and when that happens they're beat until it's time for next year's production run!

Tubes can be sourced in the same manner. Technically, you've made your own product 'cuz the factory is "yours" under a timeshare agreement. You also can have a tube made with some custom "tweaks" to your own design and specs. You'd likely have to pay a bit more to do this so you'd have to pass that along when you resold it. and whether these mods make your tube any better than something from a direct manufacturer is a matter of opinion. As I had said, most of the claims sound more like marketing than true techie stuff!

In the industrial electronic parts world nobody really cares if it's a rebranded part, as long as it passes the customer's own quality testing department to get spec'd in. Because these parts are bought by the boxcar full anybody who sells crap is out of business because he'll never make a SECOND sale!

In the guitar amp world your customer is not likely to be very technical so you can more easily "baffle him with BS". It's worse in the audiophile "hifi" market.

Me, I believe an amp of current will shove a volt through an ohm. If you can't make your claim about a tube or an amp in those kind of terms then I tend to write you off as either a non-techie who got snowed or just another "suit" trying to pull a con.
 
#22 ·
Teleplucker said:
Lord Valve only sends out his catalog about 4x a year. If you didn't get one, it's probably because he's about to send out a new one and you'll get it in a few weeks or sooner. I like his stuff best, but there is that border thing. I've never had a problem with the Tube Store, but I've heard about others who have on the forums. Pretty good results with this group though...
I just got some new catalogs from Lord Valve. I've been buying stuff from him for a few years and have never got a dud.
 
#24 ·
I go around to alot of sales etc. in the rural areas. You'd be surprised at what you find. I went to an auction sale about two months ago for a community center about 30 miles from where I live. There was a box of tubes there that had been tucked away in storage for an old (long gone) pa they had in the rink. I got 6 RCA black bottom 6l6's, four sylvania 121ax7's and a couple of electrohome 5y3's. Never used, still in original boxes. Paid $2 for the box full.

I've bought an old harmon kardon stereo amp at a sale in the spring. All tube. Mullard 5881's and 5U4 plus some electrohome 12at7's and some other oddities. Paid $5. The amp had been water damaged in someone's basement, but wasn't plugged in or tuned on and the tubes are fine.

I come across tubes and the like all the time just like this. There are lots of old ham operators etc, that are retiring or moving and you can find some great classic tubes for cheap, as well as other parts you might find useful.

Any new one's I've bought I've just searched around for the best deals. I prefer EH big bottle 6CA7's in my amps that use those.
 
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