5ar4 who made the good ones?

[rcspkramp]

Tube gurus, who made the good 5AR4 rectifiers? Which ones are still available at reasonable prices?

 

[bktheking]

I like Mullard 5ar4's.

 

[battradio]

Mullard , all others are imitations .

Amperex are good , USA made are ok

 

[BmWr75]

Mullard -- at least that is what they tell me. ;-)

 

[Tinkerbelle]

Mullard are my first choice. They labelled for many others so you will often find them with other manufacturer names on them.

Others that are good, in my experience (and much better than the new production):
- most other European
- BEL (Mullard India)
- GE with copper sides
- Sylvania large bottle
- most Japanese

You can find all of them at a decent price, you just have to be patient and sometimes you need to know in what equipment they can often be hidden.

 

[tonyg88]

Who made stromberg carlson?

 

[tonyg88]

All rectifiers do is help convert ac to dc.... How can there be bad ones aslong as it does that job?

 

[bktheking]

Try out a svetlana and get back to us- see if it outlasts a mullard.

 

[derekva]

I have a Toshiba that has been pretty reliable...

-D

 

[RossW]

From a price-performance standpoint I'm a fan of Sovtek. Will it last forever like a Mullard, probably not, but it's ~1/6 the price.

 

[Shadowdog]

The quality of new ones isn't up to the old vintage ones, but the Diode Mod can make them last along with the vintage ones. Helps in power bumps too, or when caps going bad.

Use newer faster and quieter UF4007 for a few cents more. It was posted by engineers at diyaudio and really helps. Pic is in the thread!

It won't let me upload pic saying I've uploaded it before so I relabelled it and that doesn't work.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=421920

Another interesting thread;

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=tubes&m=248634

Randy
.

 

[jaymanaa]

I have a Toshiba that has been pretty reliable...

-D

Shhh, that's supposed to be a secret.

 

[rcspkramp]

Thanks for the feedback gentlemen. Now I'm looking. Need a pair.

 

[StuartB]

I don't think anyone mentioned this....but the ones that were manufactured by Mullard have a small pin hole in the bottom of the key tab in the base....so regardless of how it is labeled the Mullards will always have the pin hole. I can give you a picture if needed.

 

[rcspkramp]

That would be really helpful.

 

[Sam Cogley]

Who made stromberg carlson?

Post a picture of it.

 

[StuartB]

Here is a shot of a 5AR4...the markings have rubbed off but the hole in the center pin identifies it as manufactured by Mulllard in England.

 

[pilotputz]

Matsushita makes a good 5ar4.
That's not the secret that it used to be, though...

 

[jaymanaa]

Matsushita makes a good 5ar4.
That's not the secret that it used to be, though...

Jap tubes in general ain't the secret they used to be, especially the ones made on the Mullard tooling.

 

[shelby1420]

Whew, I went through exhaustive research and honestly I came up with what most others here came up with so I bought several different Mullard 5ar4's ( in the time I needed them possibly 60 or so) till I got my hands on a couple of Sylvania fat bottles and my search was over.................. good thing was I made funds all back, and more, selling off the Mullards!!!