JJ EL84 failure

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

I bought expensive SED 6L6 tubes here 3 years ago, they started arcing within a week or so.... I think these are rejects from major tube selection companies, they end up here in Latin America and elsewhere.... I know for a fact that refurbished notebook computers and computer parts end up here, why not tubes....

Me too... the largest amount of dud tubes I've ever bought were Mesa Boogie branded 12AX7EHs... 247 junk tubes out of a lot of 300. Yup 247 bad tubes out of three, 100 piece boxes.
They actually argued with me that it was not possible.... like I'm an idiot.
Next, SED Svetlana 6L6GCs.... about 54 bad tubes out of 100 pc order.
Sometimes you just can't catch a break.
JJs... the only bad ones I've had are again, a large handful of their microphonic 6L6GCs and a bunch of their GZ34 rectifiers shorting out under 40-50 watt amp loads.
Excellent luck with their EL84s and I think they sound very close to decent NOS Sylvania 6BQ5 etc...
All others seem fine and nothing unusual when buying in large numbers... you are just going to hit some dogs once in a while anyhow.

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Sweet Lord. I just checked the cost of the SED 6L6s over at AES and what the hell!?
$144.00 for a quad of 6L6s?
Christ all mighty, why are they so expensive all of a sudden and who'd pay that?

[jmaf]

Sweet Lord. I just checked the cost of the SED 6L6s over at AES and what the hell!?
$144.00 for a quad of 6L6s?
Christ all mighty, why are they so expensive all of a sudden and who'd pay that?

IIRC that SED price movement began about 2 years ago....probably late 2009 to early 2010 prices started soaring without apparent reason.

Back then Chinese tubes were 1/3 the price of Sovtek, Svetlana. Now Sovtek and JJ are cheaper than Chinese at Tubedepot for example... What's going on?

Edit: Added, coincidentally, some big tube matchers started buying Chinese.....could there be a relation?

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Man, I might have start thinking about circuit tonal mods to make those cheaper Chinese tubes sound better rather then be ripped like that...
actually I don't use many SEC 6L6s anyhow but still.... absurdly high prices.
Guess I better get with NSC and see what I need to do to stock up on other tubes.... bummer.

[ttung51]

I was just going to mention this before reading your post. To the guys that have had bad experiences with certain tubes, where do they think their supplier got the tubes from? Could it be he bought some seconds or rejects from a larger tube dealer or from one of the larger OEM's that sorted them out? Maybe? If you bought from Eurotubes, that shouldn't be the case, as they are the importer to the states I believe. But if you bought from someone else, think about it, what is his source?

I bought from Eurotubes twice and got ripped off Twice. They are Crooks! Especially That guy Named Bob who thinks he knows everything about Tube Amps. Learned My Lesson.

[hasserl]

I bought from Eurotubes twice and got ripped off Twice. They are Crooks! Especially That guy Named Bob who thinks he knows everything about Tube Amps. Learned My Lesson.

Sorry you had bad experiences. I'm not a shill for Bob, but I have bought tubes from him at least a couple of times with no drama, and I know there are probably a few thousand others that have as well. But as with any business, there are going to be some bad deals where somebody isn't pleased. I don't doubt you had bad experiences, but I don't think 1 person with a story cancels out all the good deals. I hope you've found a source for tubes that meets your needs.