Cleaning up storage and found ...

[km6xz]

I am cleaning out my storage unit back in California and found some test gear that I can't use on 230volts and wondering if anyone needs, for a trade: 2 Staco E1010 fully metered variacs, rare model purchased new. 0-120 and 0-150VAC at 2amps or 10 amps switchable with front panel breaker, with large voltmeter and current meters 2 amp and 10 amp scales. Probably the nicest variacs that Staco or GenRad ever put out, modern looking and built really well.
HP 6261B 50 amp power supply, 0-20v with constant current and constant voltage, metered current and voltage, with 0.01% load regulation from 0-40amps dc. Very well built electrically quiet and safe to use on any device because of front panel or remote setting of current. Precision lab type unit, about 100lbs
Lambda Tube regulated variable lab supply that has plate voltage, bias and heater supplies, all metered metered and variable. Perfect for designing tube gear, perfect the circuit and run it then build a power supply 0-550V regulated and 200ma, 0-200 regulated, -0-50 regulated bias supply, and 2 unregulated heater supplies.

I am looking for trades for interesting lab or power supply gear that can work on 230 and not too heavy to ship to Russia. A 410C or high res true RMS bench meters would be nice. 400GL or FL or 3400 also.

[Enzo]

Wow, sounds like good stuff. I have a few warehouse items I was thinking of selling, but I think I'll wait a while now. The stuff I have isn;t that classy.

[km6xz]

I guess I will just put them back in storage since I have not been able to get a good trade, although several people offered to buy the variacs. If I ever move back to the states, it would be nice to have them. I just sent my Sound Technology 1510a audio system analyzer by EMS to my address in Russia and it was $365 for shipping! Yikkes, I was going to send another Tek 465 but now will try to get into my luggage and pay the $150 for another bag. My original plan was to ship a factional container, a pallet of gear and books by sea but found that the shippers want $2700 for that which is more than shipping a car stuffed with the same gear. I have two cars here. one would be cool there and the other one would to valuable to trust those roads and accident rates on. I have a pristine 1992 Lincoln Town car with 27,000 original miles that looks new. The other one, a 72 Bora Maserati 4.9l 4 cam hemi aluminium mid engine classic GT that I just not want to be subjected to the weather, salted roads and other-driver conditions there.
One cool little instrument I found in storage is a HP AC/DC log amplifier, that will, on the taut-band meter, display a continuous range of 130DB!! It is small enough to fit in my camera backpack, about 4"tall and 8" wide. Max direct input is 300v so with a divider probe, any signal level or supply voltage could be measured on a single range from sub-microvolts to 3000v. I had forgotten I had it. I used it before to drive a pen recorder for polar mic and speaker measurements output from the amp out of the log amp. I had a small home made turntable to rotate sample transducers and plot response for the full 360degrees. Two other finds in storage in a box about to be thrown out was an envelope with 5 $100 bills in it, and a bag full of Chip-Quik.

[Chuck H]

So it sounds like your getting ready to relocate pretty soon then. Are you still considering starting a tube distributorship when you get settled??? I remember being impressed by the prospectus you layed out here.

So I guess the '72 Maz will just hang here for when you visit? I suppose I could watch it for you. You know, keep it safe and clean

[km6xz]

Hi Chuck
Actually I have been relocated for 8 years but needed to clean up one house to rent out this spring. I got everything out of one storage unit and sorted through everything, tossing out a lot of old papers and consolidating everything into one storage unit.
Yes, we are importing tubes now from China that have been custom adopted to some minor structural and spacing changes that I requested.
During this trip I also arranged a national distributorship/importer for one brand of amps that really fit the market over there. So busy as always.....and this is supposed to be retirement that lasted 2.5 weeks until I started a new business a number of years ago.
I am set to ramp up and hire a young trainee tech who has a MSEE but no pro audio experience...yet. This trip has been really productive, I arranged for a source of factory parts for all the brands we need which the lack of is what has caused the support industry to be non-existent. The current importers of the gear refuse to sell any parts or repair out of warranty units. So there is a pent up backup of repairs and support across the 11 time zone of that gigantic country. I posted a comment on a Russian language music forum that I would consider supplying parts for qualified techs around the country who sign up as an affiliate. That one post got a dozen techs who were interested in creating a real business in various regions of they could get parts. I wrote a cloud based work order management system that will serve as the core operational program for these shops and give access to past repair statistics, descriptions of past repairs vs. symptoms and a part ordering system. I built it with remote access and affiliates in mind last year.

One thing that is complicating my time is the sudden interest in booking acts into Russia. I have run into old friends who I've worked with before who are interested in tours over there. Ran into two last night, including Bill Champlin(Chicago, Sons of Champlin etc) and another one who just finished an album with for Chris Cain and is eager to bring the act there. I do not want to start promoting but I know enough venues that a tour could be worked up pretty easily. So much for retirement... All I really want to do is play with my lab, hang out with beautiful young girls and old scotch or Tequila, dance until dawn and attend ballet and classical music events... I do these now which is why I love it there. I usually have a hard time finding nice social places here in California but last night had a ball and was surprised how many really attractive slim fit girls were out and very friendly.

The car is now on blocks in a storage unit. I usually drive when I return but I wanted to get it off its tires this time and I have been driving the Lincoln. I have no car over there but it is not needed because of good public transportation. I will probably need some sort of utility vehicle for gear transportation. I have two VW SUV sort of cars for the other business which I can use in a pinch but not in the summer when they are being used all the time for cruise ship passengers on their shore excursions. Thanks for the offer;>)

I have a nice collection of test gear there and all of it except for my curve tracer which was sent by EMS, was taken over one or two at a time in my suitcases over several years. Next trip I will bring just parts and no clothes or test gear.

[Chuck H]

Sounds like your having some fun anyway. Retired "proper" or not. It's all choices. Actually retiring is for guys who don't like what they do for their $$$. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who's noticed that you seem to have made an art out of balancing avocation and employment. I'll second the young girls and old scotch. Well, there is a Mrs. Chuck H so I suppose it's just old scotch.

I didn't expect to read "Chinese tubes". Naturally I figured you would be dealing in Russian tubes. Of course the street lore says that Chinese tubes are crap. I'd be interested in your inside view on this matter.

[km6xz]

I can't really retire, it gives me too much time out looking around for new things to do;>) My problem is that I do not realize how old I am, since all my friends and activity partners are in their 20s up to 31 and get bored with people who are not looking forward or are 'settled down". There are just too many interesting things to get into but in a way they are all connected. Just the terms and buzzwords change between industries so one who has seen other industries and the solutions to common problems that have been settled in those industries has an advantage in a seemingly unrelated industry. For example little difference was at the core of a successful high end dress store and a large recording studio, or Italian GT restoration business. I did well in repair, growing quickly because I brought ideas that were just not pursued in the pro audio field that actually came from other projects unrelated to pro audio. Sort of like what is going on now in Russia, people say "that is not the way its done" or "that won't work" when in fact it worked in another field. No one has tried bypass the policies of the distributors to create real repair shops. Sure there are some people working under the table in their apartments but they have to kluge everything and there is a lot they can't do without much test gear, OEM parts or service info other than what is on the internet. For example there are no pots in the country that fit most of this gear.

Chinese tubes are good and bad, just like Russian tubes, there is a lot of variability and deviation from the parameter definition of the tube type. The problem is that except in China, there is almost no product development. We can't get Russian produced tubes in Russia because production in the old plant in Saratov is now controlled by New Sensor who does not have a distributor in Russia. The other option is using the 6П3с-е as a 6L6...still available surplus and is used by a number of "brands" as 6L6xx. Those are about $5 in Russia. But what is lacking is good 12AX7s and EL34's, 6550's etc. Svetlana (SED) makes very good 6550, KT88 and EL34 but seldom has any stock, preferring to devote production to profitable transmitting tubes. So I did some testing of various tubes and plotted them to find out what they really are. The one major advantage with Chinese manufacturers is that they are eager to do business and will customize per your desire that Russian companies never would. So basically you have New Sensor which puts lots of difference names on their standard tubes, and you have Chinese from a 1/2 dozen companies. There are also JJ but I do not buy them, there is distributor there and they do not survive in the amps that are popular. So I have come up with a good EL34, and a quiet 12AX7 and working on developing a good 6L6. As it is, stock 12AX7s and EL84s and GZ34's are best from China in reliability,noise, parameter consistency, better than what is available from Russia currently. Another thing to consider is that every "brand" uses some tubes from China but some of those are claimed on the internet to be good, while other "brands" are not, when they are exactly the same tube with different marking on it.
Considering that almost all the high end hi-fi expensive tubes are made in China, except for the real Svetlana(not the fake NS versions), it is interesting to see how bad they are assumed to be by guitar players. It shows the power of the internet forums to generate opinions with or without evidence. Entirely too much credit or blame for sound is attributed to tubes.

[Chuck H]

As it is, stock 12AX7s and EL84s and GZ34's are best from China in reliability,noise, parameter consistency, better than what is available from Russia currently.

Wow. You may be the only living person to say that. There's all manor of talk about which Russian el84 is best, with NO regard given to Chinese el84's at all. And unless I'm wrong most MFG's use rebranded Russian el84's and not Chinese. I'm about due for a retube on my practice amp (pair of el84's). Any suggestions for what I could try to see this for myself? Considering that I only need one pair, does anyone sell the Chinese el84 you respect to retail customers???

Entirely too much credit or blame for sound is attributed to tubes.

I'll take a small issue with this one. Only because what we do here (on the forum) is try to idealize. Once you idealize your design or your clone or whatever, all that's left is the tubes. If your going to chase that last five or ten percent of tonal improvement it's in the tubes. And it's not hard to hear a better/worse difference between different tubes. But I will concede that you can't judge a tube as better or worse than another by listening to it in one amp. It may be the reverse in another amp. I say this because I have designed an amp around a specific tube before. And wouldn't you know it, that's the tube that always seems to sound the best in that amp. But as the general market goes, where idealizing the last possible five percent of tonal goodness goes rather unnoticed, I agree that too much hype and mojo is placed on the tubes.

[km6xz]

Every brand uses some tubes from China, even a few of the "Russia" tubes because no plant makes all the tubes needed to fill out the product line.

A tube can work better than another because it happens to have parameters closer to the ones the circuit matches but there is little inherent in tubes, of a particular parameter definition that accounts for differences in sound. When you analyze the actual parameters of the tube in hand, it is usually quite different than the marking on glass. Try running different tube structures on a curve tracer or plot out by hand and you can see that not many fit the tube manual parameters that they are expected to be. The problem comes when making a claim that the tube sounds "XYZ" when that claim has little to due with some general characteristic of the tube but how that one tube works in that one amplifier.
Of course when someone says to use a particular tube because it sounds great, they are also assuming that there is some objective goal, maybe the traits they hear are obnoxious sounding to someone else. After all, the whole goal of a guitar amp is to create distortion and so there is no objective superiority of one sound over another. What sounds "good" varies with culture, fads, usage that varies with time and generations of genres of music. Particular songs impact the opinion of what sounds good or a playing style influences how the amp is used.