FS:Tech Tube E813CC

[Marco]

Guys,

Just having clear out of some valves I have spare and would like to give someome a bargain if this is of any use:


http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/8406/img0373a.jpg (http://img850.imageshack.us/i/img0373a.jpg/)


http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/4556/img0375.jpg (http://img859.imageshack.us/i/img0375.jpg/)


£20 delivered.

Quite rare now, as the company unfortunately went bust not long after production started. Nice sounding valve which has had little use. Way better than the usual new production Chinese and Russian valves.

Interested parties either PM me here or email me directly at: framed6images@aol.com

Cheers! :cool:

Marco.

[topoxforddoc]

Marco,

Just sent you an email.

Charlie

[technobear]

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/8406/img0373a.jpg



:stalks:

Nice. I wanted some of these for my Croft but the parent company went bust before I could get hold of a pair.

Never mind. Settled on the GE 5751's now :)

[Marco]

No worries, Chris, as they say, c'est la vie..... Now sold to Charlie, pending payment :)

Got your email, dude, and have responded.

Marco.

[DSJR]

:stalks:

Nice. I wanted some of these for my Croft but the parent company went bust before I could get hold of a pair.

Never mind. Settled on the GE 5751's now :)

Can the 5751's go in place of the 83's? if so, what are the "general" differences and do they cost the earth?????

[technobear]

Can the 5751's go in place of the 83's? if so, what are the "general" differences and do they cost the earth?????

The 5751's have only 70mu gain against the 100mu of the ECC83/12AX7. If you never get the volume knob beyond the three-quarters mark, this will not matter.

They have many solid-state attributes. Tight but weighty bass, extended airy treble, transparent midrange but with the valve attributes of soft overload, no grain, low distortion, very musical. They don't appear to suffer from microphonics. Timing is excellent. Transient speed is first class. They are well balanced between bass and treble too unlike some of the ECC83 variants I tried.

Mine are GE JAN 5751 cryo's. They are £40 + VAT + delivery each from Watford so not bargain basement but they stack up well against the likes of Mullards and Telefunkens. Non-cryo versions are cheaper.

Edit: http://www.watfordvalves.com/product_detail.asp?id=1394

[DSJR]

Many thanks. The line stage uses 82's but the phono stage in mine has four ECC 83 variants. I currently have some far eastern ones labelled CV4004 (I doubt they are though) and they sound fine to me - far less coloured than some Mullards I also have.

[Mike]

Hey Marco.

How come you moved away from this valve, it was the best thing since sliced bread when you got it! What happened? :scratch:

I used three of the "matched" versions (£40 each, BTW!) in my phono stage and gave them up also... just wondered if our reasoning might be the same?

Cheers...

[Marco]

Hi Mike,

Good question. The Tech-Tube had certain attributes, which upon initial listening, were rather attractive.

However, with extended listening (one has to be so careful when tube rolling not to select those which simply optimise the reproduction of certain recordings), I found that it lacked the expressiveness and clarity of quality NOS examples, such as the CV4004, Tesla E83CC, and latterly, the Amperex 'Bugle Boy'.

Of course, at the end of the day, results are very system dependent and entirely subjective.

Hope that helps :)

Marco.

[Mike]

Yep, I kind of agree... to a point.

Although I found they mostly lacked the (seemingly inevitable) slight colouration I've often found with 'vintage' valves (Note the lack of the use of "NOS"!;) ) I'm not so sure they outperformed the JAN GE5751's.

The big problem for me was the failure rate of the TechTube valves; 66.66666etc% of them died on me very quickly. Not so good!

It's a pity I missed this sale though, I'd still have bought another as the rarity of them is going to raise the price to silly levels in the future. I saw one go for £100 on feepay soon after the company collapsed.

[Marco]

Lol - I used the term "NOS" as on this occasion all valves I had from the examples quoted were genuine new old stock. In fact, most were NIB (new in box).

As you know, it's all very subjective. Generally, I find that the better NOS/vintage valves are less coloured than current production ones, which I usually find have a rather thin-toned 'metallic', artificial sounding, quality to them. 5751s I like, apart from the lower gain, which doesn't suit the Croft.

If you prefer new production valves, the best currently available ECC83 types I've heard are the ECC803S gold-pin JJs, which Guy sells:

http://www.puresound.info/catalog/i7.html

Those are really nice! :)

As for reliability of the Tech-Tubes, they didn't stay long enough in my system for me to find out..... ;)

Others, though, may have had different experiences.

Marco.

[Mike]

current production ones, which I usually find have a rather thin-toned 'metallic', artificial sounding, quality to them.

I agree!

Unfortunately I find many vintage valves can head in the opposite direction and add a little too much warmth.... it's a fine balancing act at times.

[Marco]

Indeed. That's why it pays dividends now and then doing some tube rolling, as that way you become familiar with the sonic signatures vintage valves have from different manufacturers.

Quite simply, there's no substitute for experience. There aren't many premium ECC83-types I haven't tried now :)

But, yes, a fine balancing act it most certainly is. That's exactly what I found when I recently bought a load of NOS/NIB 6SL7s for the Croft. It's so easy to go down the wrong path and make a total arse of it!

Marco.

[The Grand Wazoo]

It's crossed my mind that there's just a slight chance that many so-called New Old Stock valves are actually the ones that were put to the back of the store room after they tested badly.

[Marco]

Indeed, Chris! That is why I'll now only buy NOS/vintage valves from someone who owns a valve tester and publishes the test figures (showing the readouts on a photo).... ;)

These days I'm very fussy, so I only buy NOS/NIB/vintage valves with the highest levels of emission, and which are also balanced and matched as closely as possible in pairs (or quads), whichever I need :)

Marco.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Indeed, Chris! That is why I'll now only buy NOS/vintage valves from someone who owns a valve tester and publishes the test figures....

Dat's de way to do it.
I brought this up because I once had a natter with an old guy who owned a proper old fashioned hardware/ironmongers shop somewhere or other in Derbyshire - you know the kind where you could buy nails in a brown paper bag by the pound (lb!) and there was a brass rule screwed to the counter edge.
On a shelf behind the counter I spotted that he had an old valve equivalents booklet & it turned out that he had a wardrobe full of valves in his stock room. I asked him if he had some 6U8's & GZ34's for my Radford. He disappeared for a bit & brought some Mullards out, muttering something about not having sold any 6U8's for years, told me the prices. I suggested that he was charging a bit much for dead stock. So he said I could have some of the poor testers for 1/2 price. I bought some of the good uns for what was actually peanuts! I also got some ECC83's cheap cheap - no markings on the glass or the boxes at all - they were very dodgy sounding indeed.