Recommended valve retailers.

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fftcfftc Frets: 559
edited September 2018 in Amps
I'm after some spare valves just in case, and maybe one or two different ones for some valve rolling fun. Having never bought a valve in my life I don't know where to get them. Any recommendations for good sellers, or indeed places to avoid?
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  • RiftAmpsRiftAmps Frets: 3113
    tFB Trader
    *I no longer offer replacement speaker baffles*
    Rift Amplification
    Handwired Guitar Amplifiers
    Brackley, Northamptonshire
    www.riftamps.co.uk

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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    Good - Karltone, Langrex, TAD (in Germany, but reasonable shipping).

    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

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • Highly recommend Karltone.
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  • tekbowtekbow Frets: 1687

    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..


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  • tekbowtekbow Frets: 1687
    edited September 2018

     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.

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  • This thread interests me as I had an issue with Watford once where the amp was blamed fir the problem.. I also heard about the SED story..

    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
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  • Karltone here, great service
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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11413
    ICBM said:
    Good - Karltone, Langrex, TAD (in Germany, but reasonable shipping).

    Avoid - Watford, Hotrox. Refusal to honour warranty problems in both cases.

    Just my experience...


    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.

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  • tekbowtekbow Frets: 1687
    edited September 2018
    This thread interests me as I had an issue with Watford once where the amp was blamed fir the problem.. I also heard about the SED story..

    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

    @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.

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  • fftcfftc Frets: 559
    Thanks for the responses everyone.
    Ordered from Karltone and now I know where to look if I want to dive down the rabbit hole of NOS valves! =)
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  • tekbowtekbow Frets: 1687
    fftc said:
    Thanks for the responses everyone.
    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.
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    tekbow said:

    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".
    I don't agree with the last two sentences there. I put a full set of NOS Philips/Sylvania valves in a Mesa combo I had, replacing the stock (Chinese) ones, and not only was the sound change so noticeable that at the next rehearsal the other band members immediately asked what I'd done to it, the power output had measurably increased by about 10%. There was a dramatic increase in volume, clarity and presence - not a small, subjective change at all.

    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

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • grappagreengrappagreen Frets: 1340
    edited September 2018
    I’ve sort of noticed both - little change and significant improvements.

    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
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  • crunchmancrunchman Frets: 11413

    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.

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  • I'd like to try NOS but my amp uses KT88s or 6505s - albeit single-ended, so I only need one - but there seems to be no reliable source of NOS for these without paying 200 quid per valve!
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  • tekbowtekbow Frets: 1687
    edited September 2018
    ICBM said:
    tekbow said:

    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".
    I don't agree with the last two sentences there. I put a full set of NOS Philips/Sylvania valves in a Mesa combo I had, replacing the stock (Chinese) ones, and not only was the sound change so noticeable that at the next rehearsal the other band members immediately asked what I'd done to it, the power output had measurably increased by about 10%. There was a dramatic increase in volume, clarity and presence - not a small, subjective change at all.

    That said I have come across many other cases where the difference was much less noticeable.

    I Should have proviso'd that I was talking about preamp valves only.

    I don't worry about power tubes so much as I use a Soldano, and, certainly SLO family amps, like my HR50+, are designed to have hi-fi power sections that will certainly compress and open up (and sound great for it) as you crank em, but don't really breakup.

    So I just stick 5881's in there because they're ubiquitous inexpensive and reliable. If you're cranking an amp then Power tubes won't last as long as pre-amp tubes if you're cranking the amp anyways. You can get years (into decades) out of a good NOS pre-amp tube in V1 And V2.

    As for your experience with the Mesa, don't NOS Philips/Sylvania (I'm guessing JAN tubes as that's the reason Philips bought Sylvania) have higher plate voltages than current production Chinese equivalents?

    I guess that's why the jump in power and in an amp that does have an element of power amp breakup, the difference would be much more pronounced.
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    tekbow said:

    As for your experience with the Mesa, don't NOS Philips/Sylvania (I'm guessing JAN tubes as that's the reason Philips bought Sylvania) have higher plate voltages than current production Chinese equivalents?

    I guess that's why the jump in power and in an amp that does have an element of power amp breakup, the difference would be much more pronounced.
    Higher voltage *ratings*, yes - but not higher voltages in the amp because that is determined by the power supply. A valve type cannot increase the voltage available to it.

    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

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • tekbowtekbow Frets: 1687
    I also agree there's merit to the idea that NOS vs Current production (I prefer russian, but still annoyed at Matthews) makes less difference in a modern amp design around modern, commonly available tubes, than in an old amp designed around the sonic characteristics of old tubes.

    But of course tubes weren't designed with Sonics in mind, to be fair. It just so happened that they were the tech for signal amplification (not just audio) of the era.
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  • I’ve just looked at the KT66 NOS prices for my Bluesbreaker style amp..

    Jeez..
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  • tekbowtekbow Frets: 1687
    ICBM said:
    tekbow said:

    As for your experience with the Mesa, don't NOS Philips/Sylvania (I'm guessing JAN tubes as that's the reason Philips bought Sylvania) have higher plate voltages than current production Chinese equivalents?

    I guess that's why the jump in power and in an amp that does have an element of power amp breakup, the difference would be much more pronounced.
    Higher voltage *ratings*, yes - but not higher voltages in the amp because that is determined by the power supply. A valve type cannot increase the voltage available to it.

    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.
    Sorry, my mistake, am I confusing amp plate voltage which I presume is theoretically a constant, with the power output of a given tube type?

    I'm sceptical about how much difference the type of output Tubes make to the tone at lower volumes. Subjectivity is a heck of a thing. How old wete the tubes being replaced for example?

    even Bill Sundt of soldano admits it makes less difference, although granted not "none"             

    My email from him won't copy paste on my phone, I'll catch it in a further post from my laptop.

    All this being said, Power tubes aren't my forté and I've not got lots of interest in putting something I'll pay a chunk of cash for that won't last that long relatively speaking.
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