Teonex

[Spence]

Anyone know anything about Teonex tubes?
I have an ECC83 here and from what I've read they were made under that name for Teonex by other tube manufacturers. This one has the words Electronic Valve under the name Teonex but has another stamp saying USA and the code 5751.

I have read somewhere that Teonex were rubbish but I've kept this tube for years and swapped it in and out of various amps as it sounds really good.

[Wakculloch]

I beleive Teonex was the house name for valves re-labeled by PM components, so you could end up with anything depending on what they had in stock. Looks like you struck lucky.

[dai h.]

I'd be careful to presume they are crap just because of the brand. Teonex could be nice tubes. (Hard to remember the tubes I have but for example) I have some Teonex EZ(41?) which is a small rectifier tube, weird "Rimlock" base (Rimlock tubes start with a "4") which say "England" on the striped light blue/darker blue box and "Holland" on the tubes themselves (might be remembering this backwards). Another 12AT7 which I don't think I quite figured out the manf. but most probably W.Euro manf.(or even if it was say India made, IMO it'd still be a nice tube IME). Anyway, I think Teonex was like "Zaerix" (Z and A Aero) who was another rebrander. It's possible you might find "crap", or less desirable tubes (say not really old stock Russian or Chinese) but OTOH could be the "desirable" stuff. If you run into odd brand tubes for cheap or at a reasonable price, I'd definitely check out the innards before judging. Lastly your Teonex should be American (easier to say with more certainty if there was a picture of the tubes to be able to check out the internal construction, markings, etched codes, etc.).

[Spence]

It's not crap. It's lovely. Just said that what small detail I'd read on the net about Teonex said they were crap.
I will endeavour to photograph the etchings in the next day or two.

[dai h.]

Right, you did say that you liked it. I should've said "be careful not to presume off brand tubes are crap" or something along those lines. Anyway, it can be worthwhile to take a second to look inside an off-brand tube box.

[wdb]

Hi,
There were only so many factories that actually made the tubes. But there were hundreds of re-sellers of tubes. Many of these companies like International Servicemaster, Elmenco, as well as many equipment manufacturers, would re-brand the tubes under their own name. Even the manufacturers of tubes, like RCA and GE would re-label tubes from each other as well as European manufacturers. It is not at all uncommon to see an EL34 labeled RCA but which has a European code and is made by Mullard in their Blackburn plant ("B" code). In fact, back in the day, I used to buy RCA EL34's for my amps and they were always RCA labeled "B" code Mullards. The 5AR4's I presently have are labeled both GE and RCA but all 15 of them are made by Mullard in the Blackburn plant. I have an off brand 6EU7 I just put in an amp I am working on and it is actually a Mullard, but the labeling on the tube says United Electron. You can literally drive yourself crazy trying to guess where tubes were actually manufactured unless you know something about the manufacturing codes as well as the look of certain plate structures. The bad aspect of all this is that there are a lot of crooks out there re-labeling crap tubes as Mullard, Telefunken, as well as other sought after vintage names.
I ran across a box of 100 EL84's which were Russian tubes, but re-labeled as RCA and put in fake RCA boxes which were printed up to look exactly like late 60's vintage RCA boxes. The worse case was a bunch of Russian 5Y3's which were re-labeled as GZ34 Amperex. Not only was this a rip off, it was dangerous since the 5Y3's were not up to the task of handling the current presented to them by amps requiring the 5AR4/GZ34. Because many vintage tubes command very high prices, the tube crooks are out in force trying to rip people off. I tell people to beware of any deal on tubes that sounds too good to be true. No one sells 5 Amperex 5AR4's for $50.00. Another scam is the NOS scam. When people use phrases like "Tests NOS" buyer beware! NOS means "New Old Stock", with the emphasis on the word "NEW". New is NOT open to interpretation. New means new ... Period. But, to many tube re-sellers, an old tube that tests good on their wxyz whooptidoo tube tester (which is rarely ever calibrated!) constitutes new old stock. News flash! If it has been in a piece of equipment, It's USED!!!.