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Re: No wonder they are so hard to find...

Posted by unclejed613 (A) on January 24, 2007 at 19:24:55

In Reply to: Re: No wonder they are so hard to find... posted by altecaddict on January 8, 2007 at 13:27:08:

FWIW: NTE began by competing with ECG. ECG was originally owned by Sylvania, and got bought out by Phillips. NTE began in the early '80's as a competitive second source using the same part number system as ECG. ECG always had quality control problems, as well as cross referencing problems, especially with swapping NPN for PNP with japanese transistor cross references. NTE not only had better quality control and more accurate cross referencing, but were about 10% less expensive. while the replacements aren't good for every application (you wouldn't want to replace a matched set of MJ15022/23's with even the NTE matched pairs in an expensive amplifier, unless it was an emergency) they do the job 99% of the time. eventually NTE won out. SK (rca) has been around as long as ECG, and actually had a head start in the replacement market before ECG began, but with the popularity of ECG and NTE, even SK prints the ECG/NTE equivalent number on their packages along with the SK number. NTE and ECG and SK have begun in the last 10-12 yrs to "weed out" very obsolete components. as most of their product lines are "remarks", if they can no longer get the components that they are replacing, then they can no longer supply the replacements. i forget what component it was, but i bought an ECG or an SK once, to discover the new part number printed on the device without the original part number having been completely removed.

i just looked NTE up online and they actually bought out ECG in 2001.... quite a turnaround from being the "new kid on the block"
http://www.nteinc.com/Web_pgs/about_NTE.html

i use replacement parts for general repairs such as TV's and computer monitors, and low end audio), but not for high end audio. for that i use original parts or their successors (such as MJ15024/25 in place of the now obsolete MJ15022/23).

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