speaking of 6550s and kt88s, good deal?

[Jimbilly]

Tubedepot has 'factory 2nds' of SED 6550Cs for $34.95 a matched pair (and KT88s for $39.95). I called about getting a sextet for my SVT Classic and I was told they were out. A day or two later I was going to order some other 6550s from them online, but while on the order page I figured I hit 'order' on the 2nds since the order page didn't say out of stock, and see what would happen. The order went through, and the tubes showed up today, a set of 6 for $104.85 shipped. I was told to ask for a matched set in the 'comments' section of the order form. I haven't plugged them in yet, so we'll see, but that does seem dirt cheap for 6550s, even if they're not the best ones.

http://www.tubedepot.com/sed.html

[Brewmaster]

It depends on why they are seconds. Some just may be returns, have scratched glass or bases, or measure outside of the norm. The ones I worry about are those that have funky bias points.

Other than that an SED second is better than first line Sovtek 99.999% of the time and are more often than not a good deal. .

[Jimbilly]

They all look good, and the boxes each have a sticker with '35', so it seems they are a matched set. We'll see how they do in the Ampeg, -assuming the tubeless Ampeg I bought actually works.

[morningstar]

Did it work? The suspense is killing me.

morningstar

[Jimbilly]

Sorry for the suspense: power light on, but the 'fault' light won't go off and the tubes won't even warm up. I hear these newer SVT CLs have issues with the fault protection sometimes. It's on the way to (or at) Solderhaus for repair. I tested the tubes in my tube-tester, they all test excellent.