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Topic: Long lasting tubes! |
Frank Parish
From:
Nashville,Tn. USA
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Posted 12 Jun 2006 9:02 pm |
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| I went to The Station Inn here in Nashville tonight and was talking to Andy Reiss, one really fine guitar player that plays like Hank Garland and almost never looks at his strings. I asked him what year his Gibson amp was because you could tell it had been down the road and back a bunch of times. He said it was a 1950 with the original tubes! It had a Jenson speaker that I'm guessing has been reconed but with no reverb, he sounded terrific and didn't need any. I wonder if any of the new tube amps or just the tubes will last that long. Anybody got one like that? |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 12 Jun 2006 9:06 pm
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I have a +/- Gibson GA50-T in for a cap job that looks to have original tubes - the old metal-canister ones were rarely replaced. Definitely the original Jensens. And I've service plenty of tweed and BF Fenders that have had what could very well be original tubes.
Realize that the QC on US and European tubes in those days was exponentially better than what we see today. Vintage "pulls" are usually a better choice than new Russian or Chinese tubes IMO. |
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Tony Prior
From:
Charlotte NC
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Posted 13 Jun 2006 4:22 am
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Hey Frank, we saw Andy last year with that amp, and you are way correct..it sounded great especially with Andy's style.
I believe Andy told us that he got the amp "as is" from Bobbe Seymour.
Great classic amp now part of a great players rig...
oh, and the band Andy plays with on Monday nights ain't to shabby either 
t |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 13 Jun 2006 7:47 am
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A couple of years ago I found a '70 Pro Reverb, totally stock. The filter cap's were slightly humming, but the tubes were perfect. I know of some Telefunken studio mic preamps, V72 and V76, that have been on 24/7 for the past 25 years or so and are still going strong. I think that there must have been a totally different mentality in manufacturing back then. Tubes were meant to go and go. These days I think they want to keep selling tubes, so if they only last 3-5 years, that keeps people buyng them.
Brad |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 13 Jun 2006 9:04 am
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I've had several 50s-60s amps with what appear to be the original tubes in them. The Gibsons were especially noticable, since the tubes had "Gibson" stenciled on them - I think on Gibson, that's pretty much a sign of original equipment. Not necessarily so on Fender, since they had large aftermarket tube sales of Fender branded tubes.
The Russian tube factories were originally geared to military, not commercial, applications. That's a big difference, although I'm not sure that's the big issue with tube life. As long as the mechanicals are OK, I think the biggest issue with tube life is the quality of the vacuum drawn. I have read (credibly, IMO) that current manufacture simply doesn't leave them hooked up to the vacuum pump long enough to really pull a good vacuum. Hard to know if this is planned obsolesence, manufacturing cost savings, or maybe both.
Even with NOS tubes, there can be tube life issues. Deluxe Reverb and many Twin Reverb-style amps puts plate voltages way over the tube design center for the 6V6 and 6L6 tubes, respectively, they use. If I'm working one of these hard, I have to change power tubes every 6 months to a year. Same with Music Man HD-65/130, where the high-power setting puts 700 volts on 6CA7. That's trouble, I run mine on the low-power setting - the good NOS Philips/Sylvania 6CA7s are ridiculously expensive now.
Overall, that's a big part of the problem with the modern tubes - they work OK at the design center, but not at the voltages Leo Fender ran some of his amps at. I think some of them have gotten better in the last 5 years, but they're still not there, IMO.
Still, some of the new tubes work and sound just fine in newer amps, designed with these tubes in mind. I had an early Tone King Imperial that came with Sovtek 6V6 power tubes. Of course, I immediately switched out to my standard NOS GE tubes, and was startled to find that I preferred the Sovteks. That amp (now owned by a friend) runs at a lower plate voltage, and is still running those tubes 8 years later. Go figure. The point is that an amp is often designed around a particular tube, and sounds/works best with it. |
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Ray Minich
From:
Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra
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Posted 13 Jun 2006 9:54 am
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| I've got an oscillator set from a Baldwin organ, and it's got about 24 6SN7's in it. The unit must be scrapped but the tubes are good. Are these worth anything to anybody? [This message was edited by Ray Minich on 13 June 2006 at 10:55 AM.] |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 13 Jun 2006 12:37 pm
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I've got 25 or so 6SN7's I can't give away....
6SL7's and 6SJ7's you see in amps, especially the "L"'s. |
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