At 02:30 AM 3/27/2005, you wrote: Back in the fifties and sixties tv manufacturers had a nasty habit of installing new odd ball tubes in their yearly models. Any one in the tv repair business had to stock a few of each, and if you never saw one of the sets, you never got rid of the tubes, I have several boxes of them. Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Video Production 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor Ontario Canada N8Y 3J8 519-254-4991 cfox1 at cogeco.ca

I have nearly 1000 radio and TV (and some exotic) tubes (valves to you Brits) that I'd dearly love to peddle to someone. Problem is, they're not in boxes, most of them, and testing them would take years, even though I have the gear to do so. Unboxed (=unknown condition) tubes are apparently worth very little. At 12:30 AM 3/27/2005 -0700, you wrote: Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." -- Sir Winston Churchill --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, Cisco Certified CCNA

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 00:30:31 -0700 "Bill Machacek" <bmachacek at pcisys.net> wrote: As several others may have pointed out, you really need to know what you are buying whem it comes to old vacuum tubes. Most of the TV & Radio types were produced in legion, and plentiful stocks remained after the parts were obsoleted. The primary markets for vintage tubes, are fourfold: 1) Audiophiles, seeking rare manufactures of common types of audio tubes. 2) Antique radio enthusiasts, seeking hard-to-find types for old radios; manufacture can be of great interest, but less important to those who just want to get a piece working. 3) HAM enthusiasts, seeking hard-to-find and common types for RF power amps. 4) Repairers or enthusiasts of old instrumentaion / control / lab equipment, seeking generally common types of various manufacture. Having worked with, built and repaired tube equipment for over a decade, I can tell you that you really need to *know* what you are looking at when buying old tubes. The minutia are on a par with, but not quite as historically involved, as Japanase (Nihonto) swords. A small suitcase can literally hold either a fortune (might as well be crisp $100 bills) or be a suitable boat-anchor. As a sidenote, factory tube production went on up until the late 1980's or early 1990's in the USA, mostly for military contract use. Some of the tubes made during this late era were close to the best ever of their types.. I can think of the JAN/PHILIPS 6SN7GTA and 5814A as examples. Military tubes however, can be a real canard for the audiophile. Most people assume that a 'military grade' tube will be superior in audio performance to a similar civilian type; nothing could be further from the truth. As examples, the military types 6189 and 12AT7WA compare to civilian 12AU7 and 12AT7 respectively; but as audio tubes, they sound totally dreadful - literally, like breaking glass. In these lines, the term "JAN" refers to "Joint Army-Navy". On the converse, the afforementioned 5814A and 6SN7GTA compare to 12AU7 and 6SN7 civilian types, and are exceptional devices in terms of sonic performance. You can never tell until you sit down and objectively listen to them. Yep, I rambled. -- --------------------------------------------- -. William W. Layer .- -. St. Paul, MN USA .- --------------------------------------------------- -. Cheif bottlewasher, Atma-Sphere Music Systems .- -. http://www.atma-sphere.com .- --------------------------------