Any other tubes out there?


I always see ads for mullard,amperex,and telefunken tubes. Now I am sure each have there merit, but I was wondering if anybody has listened to other nos tubes like Ei,telsa,rft,mazda. I don't see these for sale as much as the ones mentioned. Anyone out there care to shed there input? Thanks Bret
south43
Go yo www.audioasylum--click on "tubes" and do a search for whatever brand you are interested in. It's pretty much all right there. Also, check out www.thetubestore and www.vacuum-tubes-audio. Hope this helps!
South43,
Some of the tube MFG you mentioned are the reason that you don't hear of them. Ei is where the old Telefunken equipment went when they sold the equipment, and most of the tubes used in current production gear from the mid 1980s through 1993~5 (when the war started) came from the Ei factory. Mazda Tubes are very old and most of the "modern" tubes, like the 12AX7, 6DJ8, etc. were never made by Mazda.
Hope this helps your question.
Stick to the NOS tubes from the 50 or 60's. Anything newer than them are total waste of money and time. If you are serious about audio, I would like to suggest that you should stock-up a few of those Telefunken, Amperex, Mullard, Philips, Seimens etc. As for myself, I have Telefunken, Mullard, Amperex, Seimens, Miniwatt, GE, Sylvania etc in my collection. I do a lot of tube rolling in my ARC SP-11 Mk2 preamp in order to get the right sound. A small piece of advice to or the would be ARC preamp owners. Forget all those so-called factory matched Sovtek 6922 tubes, they are total garbage even they are matched by ARC. The tubes are garbage to start with and even after some critical matching by ARC, they are still the same matched garbage Sovtek 6922 tubes. When I first got my SP-11 Mk2, all the tubes inside are matched ARC Sovtek 6922. They made the SP-11 sounds horrible, sounds like a transistor preamp !!! I nearly sold the SP-11. Luckily I got some Amperex Bugle Boy 6DJ8 tubes. I installed the tubes inside the SP-11 and even the tubes were still cold. A big WOW!!! I'm going to keep the SP-11 for a long, long time.