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Ok, maybe this is an odd or naive question, but...
I have two pieces I'm taking in for repair soon. One is a two box preamp that has LOTS of $$$ NOS tubes in it: 1960's RCA 5881's, 6gk5's, 1955 WE 417A's, 1960's RCA 6SN7's, and a Philips 5ar4.
The other one is a 300B amp (I only have the original WE's, so no choice there) Mullard E88C's, and another NOS 5ar4.
My question is, should I leave the NOS tubes in the amps, or put the OEM tubes in wherever I can (aside from the 300B's)? They were a mix of nondescript new and NOS, Sovtek, Westinghouse, Sylvania, etc. They have been in a box for 15 years since I replaced them with the NOS's chosen above. I don't want the good ones damaged during the repairs. I trust the repair guy, he's a very reputable tube amp builder, but some of them are hard to come by anymore.
Follow Ups:
Priced out the tubes from Jim's website. Good news is he has everything I would need for a reasonable price. Bad news is it would still be $250 or so. I'll ask the tech and see what he recommends, I think all the OEM's I have are still good, as in functioning, sound wise, not so great as I recall. Might need at least the 5ar4's. Anyone have any experience with new production (not Sovtek, went through those like nothing when I first got the pre.)? And no, I'm not going to get an NOS Mullard, are they still even available?
Used only in amps, I don't have a preamp that takes 5AR4. The difference between them and Mullard, or Amperex vintage 5AR4 is sufficient that I use the modern tubes solely for testing and bringing up amps that I have worked on. Pretty much use only Mullards for listening but one of my amps has a GE in it at the moment.
I cannot recommend any of them for SQ, but they all work without any issues, if that is the question. Forced to choose it would be the JJ, but without any enthusiasm.
Thanks, I have a GE I got from Jim, which works flawlessly. I also have a Philips, which when I bought it from Charlie at VTV was labeled a JAN 5V4GA. There's a thread here about how they were mislabeled and are actually genuine 5ar4's. Again, works flawlessly.
Nt
The Sovteks work well if you add diode PRV protection, and if the power supply doesn't exceed their ratings with excessive capacitance. There was a lengthy discussion about this on another forum recently, but it's a common topic that's frequently discussed. Quite a few designs have popped up online over the last few years that fail to conform to limitations shown in the 5AR4 datasheets.
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Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
You should ask the repair guy. It might be important for him to service and troubleshoot the equipment with the tubes you plan to leave in it.
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Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
particularly if that person is capable to test your tubes, measures the harmonic distortion, adjust the bias, etc,
I'd put properly functioning OEM tubes in for that trip to the repair shop. Only because in that perhaps "touchy" repair/testing phase, you'd hate to see one of your classic NOS bite the dust.
You will be glad you did.
Do the same for any other valuable NOS tubes.
Again.
If you don't you may be sorry.
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