For you tube swapping tone seekers: The ultimate guide to 12ax7/ecc83

[Saul Goodman]

 

[tbonesullivan]

Definitely something useful for everyone, especially as the number of tube makers continues to dwindle. I still mourn the loss of "The Tube Shop", who used to have email "telefunken@cox.net". I got some great ANOS and NOS tubes from them about 7 years ago. Not sure when they went away, but I think it was early 2021. I remember a few other dealers trying to get into ANOS, but I think those days are unfortunately over.

[hamerican gigolo]

Due to the guitar & hi-fi crowd, the supply of ANOS/NOS tubes are rapidly disappearing. I have a small stash of 12ax7s of various makes that I bought years ago. Glad I did, because im not paying today’s asking prices for such.

[tbonesullivan]

12 hours ago, hamerican gigolo said:

Due to the guitar & hi-fi crowd, the supply of ANOS/NOS tubes are rapidly disappearing. I have a small stash of 12ax7s of various makes that I bought years ago. Glad I did, because im not paying today’s asking prices for such.

I've got a small stash, but nothing huge. I do have a bunch of SED EL34 tubes, and a pair of SED 6L6GCs, but for preamp tubes, I really got on the boat too late.

Also, I'm pretty sure the audiophile crowd, who pay $600 for a 3 foot RCA cable / interconnect, are the ones most responsible for hoarding and driving up the prices.

One of the guys who worked at the local music shop where I take lessons had helped clean out a lot of old music shops in NYC, and many of them just kept all the discarded tubes in boxes. The stuff they found from the days when tubes were just replaced routinely was insane. 

[Jimbilly]

I stopped watching after it seemed like it's just about new production, a few years ago I gathered enough good used to last me well past forever. I think there is still quite a bit of good used out there, but that would require some hunting/legwork.

Here's one you don't see every day: Mullard Master Series 10M, rated for 10,000 hours iirc