Do You Use Your Old Stock Tubes?

[BTF]

Now that old stock tubes are becoming increasingly expensive, do you posters still use your old stock for everyday jamming, or do you use the current production and save the old stock for recording or special occasions?

Just wondering, Bill.

[Blackburn]

I only use old tubes when playing my amps. That is, after they've been tested and won't jeopardize them. The new production tubes are my guinea pigs until I've taken enough readings and set bias in the ballpark... Then the fun really begins.

[rdjones]

Now that old stock tubes are becoming increasingly expensive, do you posters still use your old stock for everyday jamming, or do you use the current production and save the old stock for recording or special occasions?

Just wondering, Bill.

I have very little current or recent production tubes on hand.
I use known good used (tested, EICO 667) or less valuable NOS tubes for typical duty.
Yes, the good NOS stuff is saved for recording and special occasion.

I'm not suggesting that everyone avoid current production.
It's just that I have a fairly decent assortment of good used pulls and NOS that I have been building up over the years.
I snag NOS off eBay and a few trusted sellers when the prices are not outrageous, which is becoming more and more rare these days.

I'm not doing a volume of work that requires a supply of new tubes, though.

reddog

[Structo]

I generally buy used vintage tubes that test as new.

Much cheaper and you can also find the great tubes such as RCA, GE, Sylvania, although they may have another brand printed on them, such as organ pulls that have Baldwin printed on them.

I haven't bought any vintage power tubes, mainly 12ax7's.

If you aren't so concerned whether or not it has Telefunken or Bugle Boy printed on them, there are still some hidden gems out there.

Many of the vintage preamp tubes are long plate anodes.
Which may be noisy in a guitar amp, the can still be used in the phase inverter in most amps.

The short plate tubes that were starting to appear in the 60's work well in guitar amps and are readily available at a lot of sellers.

All that said, I'm not sure that my old ears can detect much difference between tubes.
I play lower volumes most of the time so the tubes aren't really breathing very hard at low volumes.

[overtone]

I only use old tubes when playing my amps. That is, after they've been tested and won't jeopardize them. The new production tubes are my guinea pigs until I've taken enough readings and set bias in the ballpark... Then the fun really begins.

That is a good tip to use new production for the tests to because of all the on-off stress. But I only own three new production tubes, one I lost within five minutes and there is a pair of repro G-Lion KT77s somewhere else which I have never tried.

Down to my last four quads of the old KT77s, so I swap in RFT EL34s for everyday use. Not the same feel at all but they all sound insane. Other than that I run NOS, good-used, old favorites, unknowns all into the ground. So long as they deliver. Life is too short. Then again, use is light as I have not gigged since sometime around 1000 B.C.

Best, tony

[mr_hankey]

I only use new production tubes, because I have yet to be convinced that old tubes are worth 2x-5x the price. I'm not old enough to have experienced the days when good tubes were cheap and plentiful. I'd rather just buy a few extra new tubes, so I can compare and use the best ones. Also, if we keep buying more new tubes, more money will be invested into making them better.

[Blackburn]

I only use new production tubes, because I have yet to be convinced that old tubes are worth 2x-5x the price. I'm not old enough to have experienced the days when good tubes were cheap and plentiful. I'd rather just buy a few extra new tubes, so I can compare and use the best ones. Also, if we keep buying more new tubes, more money will be invested into making them better.

Those bloated companies will never care about making them better and probably would prefer their life spans to be shorter, because what do you do when a tube goes out? You buy another one. We can only expect new tubes to become less and less dependable as time goes on until production of vacuum tubes ceases completely. Try a pair of old European or American power tubes and see for yourself. In an amp that's running them right at their design center or at an acceptable higher area they will flourish and should last you a very long time.

[selloutrr]

I run OEM tubes in my amps. So if the tubes are considered NOS...
Yes. Keeping the vintage amps running isn't cheap... But dang they sound nice. I spent almost $28k in tubes last year. To give an idea of tube increase it was $23k the year before. Probably be $40k next year. The shitty part is rental rates can't really increase without losing business so it's a hope volume / multiday rentals cover the increase without surprise damages and repairs so the money makers can stay in the field as much as possible. Otherwise I may need to start using current production tubes. As silly as it sounds keeping the vintage amps 100% NOS is a large rental perk. (Death caps and grounded power cords have been altered) for safety and liability.

[mr_hankey]

Those bloated companies will never care about making them better and probably would prefer their life spans to be shorter, because what do you do when a tube goes out? You buy another one. We can only expect new tubes to become less and less dependable as time goes on until production of vacuum tubes ceases completely. Try a pair of old European or American power tubes and see for yourself. In an amp that's running them right at their design center or at an acceptable higher area they will flourish and should last you a very long time.

I think we've already seen new tubes becoming more reliable, but in the last five years or so there seem to have been efforts to improve the tone as well, for the first time. There's also a bigger variety (of common types) of new tubes now. I have good hope that we'll be seeing more developments in the future. If there's a demand, it will be taken care of.

[boots]

Life is too short to drink lousy beer, and it's also too short to play with less than the best-sounding tubes!

I don't do any gigging, most of my playing is at home for my own enjoyment, so I always use the best sounding tubes I can get hold of.

I have collected a good supply of excellent pulls, so there is no shortage of sweet tubes to choose from. If I were selling amps, or doing repairs on a regular basis, that would be a different story. I would most likely use current production tubes, with the option to give the customer NOS for a much higher price.

Most guys who need their amp fixed probably wouldn't care if they had NOS tubes or not - they just need their amp to work. The guys who do have an appreciation for NOS tubes are probably willing to pay more for them.

As for myself, I get a great deal of enjoyment from playing with vintage tubes, so it's part of the hobby to me. Spending money on old tubes and wearing them out is better than snorting it up my nose. Don't forget this fact, you can't get it back.

[Reeltarded]

Power tubes are less important than they used to be for me because I use high gain amps than before. I really like JJ EL34L and their 6ca7. Mostly my buys in the 80s came with the original tubes and many of those continue to work just fine.

Preamp tubes are a whole other thing. I can't find a modern tube type that is consistant AND good. They all sound funny and different. It's a bother to choose a tube based only on microphonics. Ewww

[briane]

old school pre-amp tubes - they last forever. If you dont have those new EH 12ax7 are acceptable for builds I do for others.

new power tubes - they only last 2-5 years - JJ or winged C for me. Save the oldies for my keyboard amps.

[BTF]

I must say I'm surprised by the answers. I have a stash of oldies, but every time I plug them in, I sit there thinking " I'm using up a $100 or more tube jamming here at home!"

I had been really liking Tungsram for new, then they went under, then EI went south. The other day I was trying some old RCAs in my 800 preamp and loved the sound. Then I tried some JJs and they were much darker. The Sovteks I had made it sound like a fuzzbox. I'm currently using a 12AX7WXT and a JJ ECC83s and it's pretty good.

I suppose I just need to get over it.

[M Fowler]

It would easier to answer if I only had two amps but I have so damn many that I can't remember which ones I have the NOS tubes in probably all the Trainwreck amps I'm assuming.

Mark

[cpollack]

Do I use them? Preamp tubes, yes; all the time, especially in my HiFi amps. I have a few sets of Telefunken ECC83s from '60s Dyna PAS preamps and they seem to last forever if you run them conservatively. That also includes not running them in CF circuits without elevated heater supplies which seems to eat tubes more rapidly IME. I'm mostly out of matched pairs of NOS power tubes save for a pair of 6L6Gs which are being saved for something tweed-ish.

I will not use them in customer amps. The only reasons are that I can't in good conscience sell an amp which I can't guarantee I can ever make sound that way again if (when) the NOS tubes pack it in and quality of the remaining NOS these days is such a crap shoot. JJs, Winged Cs, and EH new production do the trick and have warranties.

One thing I do with customer amps is burn them in over a weekend. I haven't had a failure in a while, but most of the weak new production tubes seem to die sooner rather than later.