It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
Avoid - Watford, Hotrox. Refusal to honour warranty problems in both cases.
Just my experience...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The above recommended suppliers are good, but i feel they overcharge for NOS stuff.. they really tear the arse out of it IMO.
I've had good experiences with Watford, but never had to get into warranty stuff with them.
Also used Hotrox, my tech gets a lot of his stuff there, again good, but never had to get into warranty issues with them.
TAD are overpriced and while i know they know their stuff, there's a lot of snake oil in their sales pitch which annoys me.
PM Components NOS section is worth keeping an eye on, the only issue is they rarely update it and they've got a warehouse full of old tubes.
Billington Export is also very good for NOS and ANOS, however neither them nor PM are geared toward guitarists, so they don't test for noise and microphonics as such. I do tend to find this is less of a problem with NOS tubes as they were objectively better made back then and less prone to noise.
Just something to note. When it comes to Russian Valve brands, They're all owned by Sovtek, which is in turn owned by Mike Matthews and thus EHX.
Now, I'm not sure what differentiates the various sub brands, whether it's actual design differences or they're different tiers of factory selection, but Tung-Sol and EHX branded tubes seem to sit top of the tree.
I have a bit of a beef with Matthews as i have it on good authority that he went after SED =C= with the intent of putting it out of business. They were probably the last Factory making EL34's and 6L6's as well as they were made in the old days.They shut their doors around 2012..
Oh BTW, there's no just in case
At some point you WILL need to change your power tubes, and not all the preamp tubes wear evenly either. The Cathode Follower and Phase Inverter, in some amps (like mine) can get run hard and need changing more often than say V1.
We're talking scales of years rather than months unless you're a professional cranking your amp every night.
Appreciate the heads up on Billington and PM and will take a look.
I get the feeling that there’s a lot of snake oil in the valve scene..
Si
The one time I had bad valve from Watford Valves, he was absolutely fine about it. The website is archaic though. He does have a good selection of NOS stuff - at a price.
More recently I've used Karltone, but 90% of my playing these days is through a Kemper so I don't need valves nearly as often. The Kemper is a lot of money up front, but the added benefit is that it's probably saved £80 worth of valves so far.
@grappagreen
Yes, there's lots... and it irritates the balls off me.
I'll just state my position now. I Prefer NOS tubes. But they're not little bottles of magic, nor will they make a bad amps sound good, Nor will they make a bad player sound good. They're more like the last 1% or maybe even 0.5% in sound quality. The difference in sound between them and current production stuff gets into the territory of "feel" and can only be described in imprecise and subjective language like "textural".
that being said those differences are valid and if you prefer them like i do, then thats fine.
If i was asked to describe a general difference, I'd say old manufacture tubes from notable makers tend to be a little less stiff and a little more alive. and when i say "little", i mean little.
What is less subjective is that those tubes were made in factories the size of small towns and had metallurgists, chemists, and the most skilled manual workers all on site. It was comparable to the aerospace industry because they were used in EVERYTHING.
Therefore in general, they tend to be more durable and long lived. That in addition to the aforementioned "feel", i'll pay for.
BTW, if you thought watfords site was archaic, wait till you see Billington and PMComponents NOS sections.
Ordered from Karltone and now I know where to look if I want to dive down the rabbit hole of NOS valves!
Don't dive down the rabbit hole of NOS.
That said I have come across many other cases where the difference was much less noticeable.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The problem is that there are many variables including me..
That said I’ve always tended towards NOS as my attitude has been ‘in for a penny’ towards these things.. if I’ve spent a lot of money on a dream amp then I’m going to throw what I think are the best valves at it!
Reminds me if the old VW ad where the guy goes parachuting and has to make the choice between an expensive parachute as opposed to a cheap one... reassuringly expensive (but not necessarily better) I do however consider some merit in the point about NOS manufacturing standards given the world relied on valves at the time..
Si
NOS depends on the amp and type of valves. Modern amps tend to be designed around current production valves as well.
There are times they can make a major difference, but in some amps I've tried NOS and gone back to modern valves as I couldn't hear a difference. In one amp I actually preferred the stock modern valves.
I also wasn't running the amp anywhere near power-amp breakup to hear the difference in volume and clarity - same settings, but it was obvious that the amp was much more dynamic and present.
A friend of mine had an SLO fairly recently, which he fitted with a set of Baldwin-labelled RCAs that probably came out of an old organ or something! Also a quite noticeable difference, although I didn't measure the power output.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Jeez..