Myles B. Astor
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Favorite tube amp/tube make/model combo
- Thread starter Mike
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Albert
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Dear Santa ...
mep
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LOL, want whatever you're smoking!
What do you want to bet that some poor old audiophile died who had a nice stash of NOS tubes and his wife and kids threw all of them in the trash? If anyone in the U.S. is sitting on some truly NOS Genelex KT-88s that they won't be selling, it's probably Uncle Kevin.
You just have to move some of them to source and get your magic there. I managed to score a pair of vintage WE 101d (ST shape for $100 delivered to Europe thru EBay, even as a pair advertised as strong appears for $1700)! Caveat was that the seller said for display only, not good for Audio….I am sure he meant audio AMPLIFICATION. They work marvellously in my DHT Dac, as they output tubes are massively UNDERstressed and I expect them to last a long time. I suspect that many weak "no good" tubes can see life extension as Dac tubes and continue to work their magic there for a decent price and over a reasonable useful (further) lifetime.
Go UP(stream) young man, go Up!
Glareskin
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My only vintage for Christmas is a great port wine Norman!
I cannot imagine someone wants to argue with this quality
This is also creating magic...
puroagave
Active member
My tube experience is admittedly limited but so far I've found that in my Aesthetix Calypso when running a matched pair of 1950's Sweden Military NOS Sylvania Triple Mica Black Plate 5751 in lieu of the stock 12ax7 Tung Sol reissues and Sylvania 6dj8 National Cash Register instead of the EH 6922 supplied from Aesthetix that the sound is extremely smooth, detailed and rich and lacks no dynamic slam. With the 5751 drivers, they are a couple db down for output compared to the stock 12ax7 but that's ok.
A couple weeks back I swapped in some NOS Tung Sol 12ax7 to compare against the Sylvania 5751. The Tung Sol 12ax7's have a hint more top end sparkle and air over the Sylvania 5751 plus adds back some of the missing gain but aren't as "easy" to listen to. Where the Tung Sol do shine is at lower volumes as they provide scads of detail even at the lower volume output.
I could be happy with either pairing long term.
p.s. Nice Porto Glareskin! My oldest port in the cellar is the 94 Warre's but still has a number of years until it's opening. Enjoy!
A couple weeks back I swapped in some NOS Tung Sol 12ax7 to compare against the Sylvania 5751. The Tung Sol 12ax7's have a hint more top end sparkle and air over the Sylvania 5751 plus adds back some of the missing gain but aren't as "easy" to listen to. Where the Tung Sol do shine is at lower volumes as they provide scads of detail even at the lower volume output.
I could be happy with either pairing long term.
p.s. Nice Porto Glareskin! My oldest port in the cellar is the 94 Warre's but still has a number of years until it's opening. Enjoy!
mep
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Rob-You and I have had this conversation before. I have never had any issues/problems with Uncle Kevin. Can you imagine how many numbskulls call him up and try and pick his brain and never buy anything from him or ask him idiot questions while they are wasting his time and kicking his tires?
Hmmmm, LECKER!My only vintage for Christmas is a great port wine Norman!
I cannot imagine someone wants to argue with this quality
This is also creating magic...
Yeah, the 5751 is mid gain, more akin to the ECC81, 12aT/V/Y7, no? Gain factor of high 45s to mid 60s, while the 12ax is factor 100 and the 12au is 19.
The lower amp factor ECC tubes have a rep for having a more delicate sound and in some cases people mix the robust ECC83 with 81s or 82s.
One pal who was hunting Barn tubes flatly refused the new in box EH 6922 I found, saying they were a waste of time, and preferred used West Europe ECC tubes instead.
Oscar is correct, mixing can give brilliant results as can the clever use of pin adapters ;-)
Here are a couple of oldies but goodies from my cellar. The '45 Niepoort is my birth year and the '27 Dow was the first great port I drank, way back in 1967. Still have one bottle each of them.
Larry
Nice Larry! My Dad is a fan of the Dow. I recall tasting a 1985 with him some time back. Good stuff indeed.
That's how I understand them too Norman. All I know is the 5751 is a pretty special tube. At one time I also ran the same Sylvania 5751's in a Conrad Johnson MV-55 as the drivers. That was a sweet sounding setup too. Quite a versatile tube the 5751.
The 5751 mu is 70, which is still decidedly in high-gain territory. In practice you get just around a 1dB drop in gain vs. 12AX7 (up to a theoretical max of 1.5dB), depending on the circuit. In fact it's close enough to 12AX7 gain that some 5751 may measure higher than some 12AX7. It's definitely much more like a 12AX7 than it is anything else.
That said, I find GE 5751 TM BP "silver clips" version tubes to be THE magic tube for my Rogue Apollo monoblocks. Paired with Sylvania black oval-plates 12BH7 (in place of 12AU7) and Russian KT-120, it makes bliss. The later non-silver clips GE and RCA 5751 are also excellent, but the early 1950's GE silver clips just fire on all barrels for me.
That said, I find GE 5751 TM BP "silver clips" version tubes to be THE magic tube for my Rogue Apollo monoblocks. Paired with Sylvania black oval-plates 12BH7 (in place of 12AU7) and Russian KT-120, it makes bliss. The later non-silver clips GE and RCA 5751 are also excellent, but the early 1950's GE silver clips just fire on all barrels for me.
puroagave
Active member
when you put yourself out there as a tube guru with all this unobtainium esoterica what kinds of questions are you expecting to get? especially when some of this stuff is so expensive. that's exactly what happened to my friend, after 5 mins of Q and A, 'Uncle Kevin' asked him if he was going to buy something (!). there's an adage in sales: they (customer) have to like you first before they do business with you.
mep
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Your friend was lucky he got 5 minutes of his time before he was asked. Do you know how many customers were holding on other lines that were waiting to talk to Kevin in order to buy something? You have to separate dreamers, time wasters, and people who are just using you for your knowledge just to go and buy somewhere else from real customers.
The hifi audio hobby hosts plenty of tire-kickers, wafflers, and users. So I don't blame any dealer for exercising their discretion in identifying such "customers" to unceremoniously cut off, even if that gets used against me -- though it rarely does, as I'm not a time waster. Before you call, perhaps ask yourself "how am I going to distinguish myself in this call from the time-wasters?" -- which may include prior research and due diligence to answer questions that can be readily resolved via google/forums.
Though from what I've seen listed of Upscale's tube stock for the past several years, there's really no high-end/unobtanium esoterica to be had. Just long-warehouse'd leftovers from once very HIGH production (mostly) European tube models. There's still some good stuff mixed in there, but nothing that really excites me as a tube fanatic.
Though from what I've seen listed of Upscale's tube stock for the past several years, there's really no high-end/unobtanium esoterica to be had. Just long-warehouse'd leftovers from once very HIGH production (mostly) European tube models. There's still some good stuff mixed in there, but nothing that really excites me as a tube fanatic.
mep
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I start every conversation with Upscale Audio with "I want to place an order." I have never had a single issue. Kevin gets calls from people all over the world and I'm pretty sure he is good at sniffing out people who aren't ready or able to buy anything so he can switch over to other lines where he has real customers waiting to talk to him who have their CCs out and are ready to buy.