You need NOS tubes made with the heart of a Supernova is what you want so you can hear the BigBang through your artiste’s music

What is your amp and other equipment? That and tube positions in the overall chain as well as the circuit make a big difference as to how much you can hear a difference.

Yes. I’d recommend always buying the most expensive tubes you can. If you spend 1000 dollars per tube you will be able to finally hear the musician’s heartbeats when they were recording your favorite tunes.

Yes and no. In my system I have found the best 6SN7 to be the old Brimar the second are a bunch of American NOS. I haven’t found a modern 6sn7 that sounds better than nos in my system. The best 300b I have had in my system is a modern Takatsuki.

I did some tube rolling for the 12AX7s in my preamp, and pretty quickly settled on NOS Voshkod 6N2P tubes matched by a reseller. They give me that full, warm, “blooming” sound I was looking for without sacrificing much treble detail.

It depends on the amp. Research tube suggestions for your particular amp.

In the past, maybe 10 years ago, I would have said yes in support of NOS tubes. Because newly made tubes were an after thought in a dying industry. Now, I am not so sure for the following reasons:

1. Newly manufactured tubes have come a long way, both in terms of quality, reliability because of manufacturing process, newer and better materials. Any difference you hear is down to preference and not because NOS tubes are better.

2. There are less and less NOS tubes on the market. What is readily available are not the best examples. Unobtainium is now used more often and people are resorting to NOS tubes just because they are NOS even though they may not be great. Not to mention the issues with finding a matched pair or quad.

3. There are so many fakes and remarked tubes on the market it’s almost not worth the risk.

4. It’s not unusual to spend a ton on a NOS tube only to have it die after a few dozen hours. Then you are pretty much out of luck.

Modern tubes like the new WE300B or Takatsuki 300B hold up really well and in a lot of ways outperform NOS tubes.

I have a conrad Johnson pv12 preamp which uses a pair of 12au7 tubes and my favorites I tried were a matched pair of old NOS Brimar CV4003 tubes I got a few weeks ago. They sound lovely and well worth the money IMO ( very hard to find in the US and werent cheap). I also was using NOS pair of RCA cleartops which sounded quite good before that (somewhat expensive but half the price of the Brimars). There were some stock tubes made for primaluna in it when I got it from my friend and I can say they didn’t sound nearly as good as the old NOS tubes I bought. The RCA and the Brimar sound way better. That preamp had old mullards when he bought it used many years ago and they sounded very nice too. They were old and had a lot of hours on them and started going bad so he got those other tubes from a primaluna dealer. After he had a chance to buy a very expensive PBN Olympia preamp that was a little over 5 figures new (from a guy he knows at a price he couldn’t pass up) he sold me the CJ for a nice price and it pairs nicely with my old CJ amp

In my experience, Yes!! However I would say it completely depends on your system AND your preference. If your system is resolving enough and you can hear the difference then it’s worth it to try and tube roll NOS tubes with current gen tubes and see what differences you can hear and whether you prefer one set of tubes over the other.

I have experience with McIntosh MX110z preamp and 3 different power amps with different tubes sizes - Sam Kim EL84, Marantz 8B(EL34) and McIntosh MI-75s(6550/KT88). I started with current gen Russian and Chinese tubes on my amps and they sounded great. However, my curiosity and OCD led me try and tube roll as many tubes as possible. And when I heard NOS tubes, not only was the difference in sound noticeable to me, I also preferred the sound of the NOS tubes. In some cases, the older the tube the more I preferred the sound. I have found that the tubes from 50’s-60’s sound best in my Marantz and McIntosh amps. Across the tube sizes, I have tried at least 20 different variations of tubes. In some cases I have found that the recommended tubes for my amp work the best in other cases I have liked tubes that are not highly recommended or sought after. The best way to figure out if a tube is going to work for you is to try it out. Although it is becoming quite difficult to acquire NOS quality vintage tubes. I also had to invest in tube testing gear to ensure my tubes are up to mark. My strategy has been to:

1. Acquire good quality paris/quads of NOS tubes
2. Tube roll as many tubes as possible
3. Find the preferred sound (tubes) on my system
4. Keep the preferred tubes and sell the others.

Here’s a recent video I made on the differences between original Telefunken EL34s and the RFT Telefunken EL34s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PBUw8tFVM

I have tried the following tubes in my amps and I have preferences in each category and in every category my preferred choice is an NOS tube:

12ax7/12au7:

1. RCA
2. Telefunken
3. Amperex
4. Sylvania
5. GE

EL84:

1. Mullards
2. RCAs
3. Telefunkens
4. Amperex
5. Phillips Miniwatt
6. Siemens L
7. Russian 6P14P

EL34:

1. Philips/Siemens
2. Telefunkens
3. RFT Telefunkens
4. RFT Siemens
5. Svetlana winged C
6. Chinese Shuguang

6500/KT88:

1. Tung sol black plate 6550
2. Tung sol grey plate 6550
3. Tung sol 3 hole 6550
4. GE 6550A
5. Sylvania 6550
6. GEC KT88
7. Genalex KT88
8. Svetlana winged C
9. Chinese Valve Art KT100

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