***Is It Me Or Have Todays Modern Tubes Gotten REALLY REALLY Good***

I won't say which brands of tubes, because I am just one individual, so the sample size is really small and it could have just been bad luck, however...

I decided to try rolling some new highly recommended tubes in my preamp.  About a a month after I got the tubes, one went microphonic.  The good news is I was able to return them for a full refund. 

I decided to try another highly recommended set of new tubes.  One of those went microphonic after a few months.  I contacted the manufacturer and they offered to apply the purchase price of the first set of tubes towards their "new and improved" tubes.  I said sure.  One of those was microphonic when I installed it.  I gave up on that brand also. 

I put the stock Tung-Sol reissues back in and those worked fine. 

I recently bought a pair of NOS  Sylvania 6SN7GTA Chrome Dome tubes to replace the Tung-Sols and those seem to be working well so far.  I paid an extra $13.99 for an extended two year warranty, so if these go bad any time soon, they'll be replaced.  These were also less expensive than either of the two new sets of tubes I bought.

It's too soon to say how these will hold up over the long run, but they're quiet and sound great in my preamp.

When you see those old videos of the Mullard production - large factories cranking out vast quantities of tubes using almost steampunk technology- it’s kind of amazing. The scale of production was considerable and the tooling was fresh, I gather some of the materials are now unobtanium, or at least not so easy to use in an age when worker health and safety is highly regulated as it now is in the EU and the States. (I think that’s a reason why most plastics are made abroad these days).
I still haven’t found a better 12ax7 for my amp than an old Telefunken, but have not tried the Psvane black tube. The current production Sovtek sounds lifeless in my amps in my system- Vlad supplies them with new tube sets presumably because it’s reliable and supplying more exotic, older tubes would be time and cost prohibitive.
I roll rectifiers in my phono stage power supply and the best sounding ones have been old ones. The new tube that came with the unit was not good sounding. (That the rectifier makes such a difference in sonics is fascinating since it isn’t in the audio path).
I thought I had an issue with my line stage tubes- from the get go, I had DR Reflectors- I grabbed a matched quad of the E-H variant (they are now all made in the same factory) and the system sounded drier, less resolving, less harmonic decay and less information overall. I sourced another quad of DR Reflectors and the difference was immediately apparent. The mojo was back.
I think some of the differences in results are probably due to the circuit and how the tube is used. One person on another forum said they didn’t think the DR old stock was better in an ARC component. I’m using them in something else..
The original GEC KT 66 is a dramatically better sounding tube in my little Quad IIs. The amp was built for those and other tubes I’ve used in those amps just don’t sound the same.
I would much love that brand new tubes sounded better or at least as good as these old tubes. The 6H30 is a PITA since there are very few options. As far as I know, most NOS Tele small tubes are ’pulls’ or of uncertain provenance that test ’as new’- I’m not sure most vendors can say more unless they found some master carton of them-- and for these more commonly used audio tubes, the prices keep going up as the supply dwindles.
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That does not match my experience with an Audio Research LS2B MKII Pre.  First owner here and about 25 years old.  I've auditioned newer stuff from time to time but it sends them packing. Came from AR with a 6DJ8...  tried bunches of them from Bugle Boys to Valvos, Telefunken and such and then moved to CCa6922 's with many tested and none as good as the Siemens and Halske grey plate from late 50's and early 60's.  Had pinched waist 1959 Valvo Cca 6922's that were magnificent but the issue with all classic tubes...  forget the 5,000 or 10,000 hours nonsense...... if you get a couple hundred hours of prime performance before the bass starts deteriorating or the tube gets strident you are lucky. ... and I say that after rolling this unit for almost all of it's 25 years.  Using 6N23P Volshad Rocket circa 1977, silver version and it's really, really good.  As with the best Siemens and Valvos it's not listening to music, it's going to a performance.

Nice amp , and yes modern tubes are good . However , I dare you to roll in 4 NOS  Telefunken signal tubes and say it isn’t an improvement. But everyone knows it’s subjective . I must be stupid as I have more invested in tubes , than my amp . But it’s been fun . Hi “ My name is Mike, Im a Tube Addict “ . With all the NOS stuff I have , I absolutely love the Tungsol KT 120’s . And I hope I never run out of Svetlana Winged “ C “ KT 88’s . I’ll keep coming back 😎