Old radios - throw away?

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Nice - like tubes

Have a old restored Knight AM tabletop radio, would keep a cup of coffee (on top) warm but the finish is to nice to do that.
2A3 Tube amp for my main listening room.
Danelectro Silvertone 1457 restored complete set.
 
When you see language like "magical" or "micro-detail" you know the target audience hasn't a clue.

I suppose that should make me happy. If a mediocre JAN Raytheon 12AX7 is worth a couple of hundred bucks, I guess it's time to cash out my tube inventory and buy a new F Type.
 
Originally Posted By: Volvohead
To give you an idea how crazy some of these old tubes get:

https://tubedepot.com/products/jan-raytheon-12ax7

I've about a dozen of these picked up for $10-15/ea 20+ years ago. They're very nice, but they're not a $250 tube, either, not even "on sale".

If it's the right tube, people will pay $$.


I wouldn't pay 250bux a pop for JAN raytheon 12AX7....they don't sound all that good to me to begin with.

Just me.

Q.
 
I'll let you in on my take on these crazy little things called tube sound:

As good sounding toobs supply dwindle (e.g. Siemens, Mullard, Holland Philips, RCA, Telefunkens, Valvo, etc.), they get replaced by latecomers from china, ex-soviet, etc. or some bottomend rejects of telefunkens, etc. where they are inherently noisy or not up to spec.


Because of that: anything requires high-gain these days, I resort to using either FET input op-amp, or some high performance op-amp to replace previously designs such as RIAA tube gain stages, etc. to eliminate the discrepancies between gain stages, or gain stages that are sub-spec....noisy, structurally poor (sustained ringing is fairly common), etc.

Only on line stages, etc. where medium Mu tube are widely available and good ones are not that difficult to attain. While the common ones such as 12AU7, 6SN7, etc. are at the same fate as high-mu ones like 12AX7, there are much more good stuff in this category that can still be had at a very reasonable price. My initial fave was 5965, but then I discovered that 6N1pi was the "2-die-4" for me and I have been forever hooked on it a decade ago.

power tubes, well, too bad the good ones are long gone, so now you have to live with some sino made crrraabp or some ex-soviet stuff that sounds hard and cold. Good quality EL34s from Philips, Siemens, Mullards, etc. are priced astronomically, and 6550 Generax Gold Lions are tough to come by...

Oh well: I still have some RCA 2A3 bi-plates that I live with, and should last me till I kick the bucket...

Q.
 
Originally Posted By: Quest

I wouldn't pay 250bux a pop for JAN raytheon 12AX7....they don't sound all that good to me to begin with.

Just me.

Q.


The BP Raytheon 12AX7 is a good tube, similar to, but a little more punchy above the bottom than an RCA BP.

But in the right setup, a Raytheon BP 5751 (up to about 1966) is a spectacular tube. I won't pay $250 for any of them. I have enough to last.

But it all depends on the circuit, the surrounding stages, and the remaining components in that system, right down to the music genre preferred. Even mega $$$ Mullards and TFKs can sound dreadful if in the wrong place, where a humble Sylvania or GE sounds just right.

Bottom line to the OP: Sometimes, while the circuit doesn't have the "high-demand" small signals, someone slips a nice tube into even an old beat up All American Five once in a while. Put them on Ebay and see who bids. Ebay idiots will pay $35 for a BP RCA with borderline emission and section imbalance.
 
For high precision, high gain/low noise circuitry such as RIAA MM/MC gain stages, etc. I have long given up the idea of using toobs but go with op-amps. I know there's the stigma RE: solid-state sounds "cold", yadda, yadda, yadda. Fact is: I have come across some carefully executed Op-amp gainstages that don't sound anything like typical S-S stigma's concerned (can sound quite good, not sterile at all....)

Also for Op-amps: slew-rate and bandwidth are the devils that most casual-designers misunderstood over 95 % of the time: just like cars, engines output,etc. they always go with high slew-rate and high bandwidth....not knowing the associated issues with these 2 ....oftentimes ended up causing self-oscillation on supersonic area (>20kHz) w/o even knowing it...

Anyways, I just wanna put my 2c's worth RE: op amps vs toobs...I like toob sounds when done right; I like op amps when done right (e.g. my RIAA phono premamp using LM4562 doesn't sound sterile at all, and the distortion figures, RIAA correction deviation (less than 0.5dB from 20~20kHz, and stability, etc.)pretty much rivals a lot of those so-called, multi-dollar "high-end" stuff, and never have to worry about noisy/ringing phono preamp high-mu stage toobs, etc.

viva black vinyl! viva toob sound!

Q.
 
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