More fun rolling with premium quality NOS ECC83 tubes...

[northwest]

Marco, are you using these in your Croft pre amp? If you are, what are you trying to achieve if you don't mind me asking?
Thanks

[Marco]

Hi Graham,

Yes I'm using them (well, one in the power supply section) of my Croft preamp.

What am I trying to achieve? Even better sound quality, of course! Tube-rolling, in a suitably revealing amp, always makes a significant difference.

Marco.

[Marco]

Hi Marco,

Yes, I have one of the earlier ones. A Charisma Elite.

It just came back from being fettled at Glenns 2 weeks ago. Dual valve regulation, dual tranformers and what else..

I posted pictures in the "Gallery" section I believe - go have a look

What can I say, I´m a Croft-aholic. Having had an old Micro, new Micro 25 (now sold to Andrew E on this forum), an old 5 series, a Vista and now a newer Series V with the Charisma Elite.

I did try the Series 7 regular about 1,5 years ago, but didn´t go for it. Curious about the 7R I must say.

I've just read the thread now, Mikkel. Very interesting! When I first looked at the pic I thought to myself 'My God, Glenn's now using Duelund caps in his upgrades!', but then I read the rest of what you'd written...

Your Charisma is very different from mine, however. Mine has a totally different case and uses 6SL7 output tubes, and is hard-wired, point to point, throughout:





Not my actual amp, but mine looks identical, apart from the fact that it now has a huge off-board PSU, so the little toggle on-off switch at the front has now been removed.





Pic above is a close-up of the line stage. You can see the green-coloured SCR Teflon coupling caps, which are superb!

However, I totally agree with you about Croft designs - they're very 'purist', but oh so musical sounding!

Marco.

[northwest]

Yes, if nothing else, the Croft is certainly a revealing amp. I am going to look into this.
As a total aside but on the subject of tube, how long do you think an amplifier can un before a tube replacement becomes necessary?

[Marco]

I didn't know you had a Croft, Graham - nice one

As for tube replacement, much depends on the tubes in question... Small signal valves, like ECC83s can be good for many 1000s of hours, whereas with large output tubes, such as for example, KT88s, it'll be considerably less, especially if they're being driven hard by the partnering amp.

The best bet to be sure what's going on, is to send your tubes to someone with a professional tester, where they can be properly measured to see if they still fall within the correct parameters. Then you'll know for sure if whether they need replaced or not.

Someone like Anthony TD here is your man

Marco.

[Ali Tait]

Good small NOS valves will give tens of thousands of hours.

[Marco]

Indeed

Marco.

[goraman]

Marco, I was fortunate years back to get alot of Ei's and Westinghouse and some old RCA's from the 50's and a hand full of old Mullards, the vintage stuff dose offer a little more depth to the music but I will give credit to new tube manufactures in Russia and China for improvements and encourage people to support them as they are tomorrows vintage for example the Gold Lions and TADS are very good along with the new Tungsol it's a big improvement over there stuff even 5 years ago as the metals,coatings and plating they are using continues to improve. Soon they will be the only game in town.
And they are closing the gap between the sound quality of the old stuff and what was modern tubes every year. Soon my hope is the reissues will get as good as the originals and we can all stock up. Anyone hear the reissue Mullards compared to the old ones I like my old Mullards and hope the reissue is getting closer.

[Marco]

Hi Jeff,

I'll comment more on tubes later, as I'm just off to listen to some choons, but when you're bored with your current avatar (which is superb, btw!), offer it to Barry, will ya?

I think he'll love it!

Marco.

[goraman]

Hi Jeff,

I'll comment more on tubes later, as I'm just off to listen to some choons, but when you're bored with your current avatar (which is superb, btw!), offer it to Barry, will ya?

I think he'll love it!

Marco.

Will do Marco,if he PM's with an email address it's his.
Nice lot of tubes you have there,I hope you didn't pay full retail as they are at least $100.00 each in the states, That's why I'm glad I got a butt load of tubes years back before people really started to value them. I wish I had bought a flat of Phillips from the early 60's ecc83's in 1989 $10.00 but I didn't have use for them then as I was on the look out for 6LQ6 at the time a 50 watt monster no longer obtainable today.