I thank all off you for your insight thoughts and experiences. I would like to confess a bit more. My "big rig" is all tube and the tubes used are probably old stock not New Old Stock.
I say this but do have many true NOS tubes. Nonetheless for all intents and purposes NOS is virtually extinct as a readily available commodity except as Feil said from carefully selected dealers. These dealers are very honest and also know what is NOS and what is not. BTW I own several testers and strong testing tubes are not NOS just strong. Tubes can get very noisy quickly even if they are NOS. My dealer of 6SN7s was a true expert and only sold superb tubes often for a premium he offered NOS. Even his best would get microphonic that's the nature of that tube. I am lucky to have tubes from him. He last wrote to me that he was going to throw in towel as sourcing these tubes is getting impossible. He sold here by the tag Whoopdeedaooda or close to that. Also LEN on the inmate place.
My phono stage dilmena is still a problem. I switched from an ARC SP6B with gain to knock you over( 6X 12AX7) but every other noise could be heard and using even real NOS and new tubes didn't change that. I am currently running a line stage AE-3 which is great. Maybe its the fact that it uses my favorite tube 6SN7s. I will have to check out Modright. Thanks
I say this but do have many true NOS tubes. Nonetheless for all intents and purposes NOS is virtually extinct as a readily available commodity except as Feil said from carefully selected dealers. These dealers are very honest and also know what is NOS and what is not. BTW I own several testers and strong testing tubes are not NOS just strong. Tubes can get very noisy quickly even if they are NOS. My dealer of 6SN7s was a true expert and only sold superb tubes often for a premium he offered NOS. Even his best would get microphonic that's the nature of that tube. I am lucky to have tubes from him. He last wrote to me that he was going to throw in towel as sourcing these tubes is getting impossible. He sold here by the tag Whoopdeedaooda or close to that. Also LEN on the inmate place.
My phono stage dilmena is still a problem. I switched from an ARC SP6B with gain to knock you over( 6X 12AX7) but every other noise could be heard and using even real NOS and new tubes didn't change that. I am currently running a line stage AE-3 which is great. Maybe its the fact that it uses my favorite tube 6SN7s. I will have to check out Modright. Thanks