Chinese tubes vs. Russian Tubes, any difference?

[mcdan]

My experience with Russian and Slovak tubes has been generally poor. JJ 5AR4 in my modded DYNA MK4s has been a disaster. Spotty performance and premature failure of EL-34s also. I have tried EH 5U4s, 12AX7s, etc. in my MC-30s with failures too. Afraid to try Chinese tubes at all. Best to look for NOS, if affordable IMHO.

 

[goraman]

My experience with Russian and Slovak tubes has been generally poor. JJ 5AR4 in my modded DYNA MK4s has been a disaster. Spotty performance and premature failure of EL-34s also. I have tried EH 5U4s, 12AX7s, etc. in my MC-30s with failures too. Afraid to try Chinese tubes at all. Best to look for NOS, if affordable IMHO.

If it's a 12AX7 you need and you really want preformance try the sovtek lps I promise you will never buy new old stock for this tube agein the very early date codes and todays new production are outstanding.I have one that has been running 3 years now.

 

[reddog48]

I have done a lot of tube rolling over the last 15 years and have found that the Chinese tubes measure better but the Russian tubes sound much better and last far longer. I have had Chinese tubes flare out (self destruct) after as little as four hours of operation.

The best tubes out there, at least imo, are made by Svetlana (now also known as New Sensor or Winged C in the US - some strange legalism about trademarks means that there are two sites to buy these tubes direct - on for the EU/Canada and one for the US).

I bought a set of two matched quads (EL-34) for my monoblocks. When I got the tubes from the distributor they were simply loose in the box. I had expected each quad to be wrapped individually.

When I called the distributor he pointed to the fact that each tube had a value written on the base with an ink pin - he also pointed out these numbers were ALL IDENTICAL. Those numbers were the gain measurement for each tube - they came out of the factory perfectly matched (the distributor had remeasured the tubes and written the numbers on the tube base).

Sweet sounding, extended, musical, authoritative - they can absolutely transform the sound of a amplifier (at least in my experience with a set of Quicksilver monoblocks that had used Chinese tubes from the factory).

As for the small signal 12AX7/12AT7 - I have tried NOS (wildly varying results) and Svetlana. Again the Svetlana has been everything I wanted with very high levels of reliability. The small signal tubes are critical to the final sound and the right tube can transform a piece of equipment - it is amazing how much difference a tube makes.

Bottom Line: I won't even consider Chinese tubes for any of my gear. NOS is a bit of crap shoot - you don't know how a given tube will sound to your taste and in your gear. Maybe fantastic and maybe ordinary or worse. Wth the Svetlana you will be happy. Not to mention that NOS stuff is both expensive and 'sometimes' questionable in terms of the "NEW" part of NOS.

Sovtek is excellent in imo - but rarely seems to have the incredible musicality of the Svetlana brand. Sovtek is also extremely reliable and can be counted on to perform.

Tube rolling is really worth the effort - if you choose well its like getting new gear in your rig ;-))

 

[M3-SRT8]

New that I am to Tubes, I bought a PrimaLuna DiaLogue Two int amp, w/ KT-88's/12AU7/12AX7 as a tube array. She has about 200 hours on her, and sounds fine to me.

As I understand, the design of the amp underdrives the tubes, so, longetivity doesn't seem to be an issue, at least not yet. Their 'adaptive autobias' circuitry perpetually 'tweaks' the bias. They warranty the tubes for 500 hours...

I bought it because I like what I heard & saw. I like the KT-88 sound, with it's tighter bass. Build quality is superb.

Anybody know where in China their tubes are scourced?

LJB

PS: I'm sure glad TV Sets are not too critical. Tubes for them are cheap. I've procured NOS GE's, RCA's, Westinghouse's, etc for as little as a buck a tube. Have plenty to retube both vintage TV's I own; An RCA 630TS and a DuMont RA-105B.

 

[sleddogman]

IMHO, the SED "Winged C" =C= from St. Petersburg have been the best overall brand of Russian tubes for the past 15 years. Just to clarify what reddog48 mentioned, SED lost the trademark rights to the Svetlana brand name to New Sensor back in 2000. Current Svetlanas produced by New Sensor in Saratov are an entirely different animal from the current SED "Winged C" produced in St. Petersburg. They are NOT the same tube (unless you happen to find pre-2000 NOS versions with the old SED Svetlana logo that were produced in St. Petersburg.)

SED's material quality has remained consistent and quality control is a step above the variety of tubes coming out of New Sensor (the old Reflektor and Xpo-pul plants.) Price-wise, they're in the same ballpark as New Sensor and a matched quad of EL34s are around $75-$80. New Sensor has become sort of the GM of tubes, with various logo trade names offerings coming out of the same factories (Svetlana, Electro-Harmonix, TungSol, Sovtek, Mullard, etc.)

The majority of old Sovteks (pre-New Sensor) were rather good, but the coveted early date code versions, especially like their 12AX7LPS preamp tubes, are rather scare these days.

The old Tesla (pre-JJ) tubes were also reliable and sound rather good. At times you'll see various NOS varieties come up for sale. The versions stamped with a double-saber are the high quality military versions and typically feature either gold or steel pins. Current JJ tubes on the whole are a crap-shoot and rather unreliable (at least for me.) Metallurgy characteristics fall short of New Sensor and way short of SED, plus many people have complained about sloppy construction and shorting issues.

Chinese tubes are making some headway, but like JJ, are also a crap-shoot, especially their rectifier tubes (e.g., GZ34 / 5AR4 which I would avoid like the plague.) Unfortunately, the vast majority of no-name versions find their way into tube musical gear (Peavey, Carvin, etc.) because they're cheap when purchased in bulk quantities. They can also turn up labeled as Ruby (a "boutique" re-brander of both Russian and Chinese tubes.)

Granted, a lot of this is subjective, and by all means, to each his own, but I've been using tubes in variety of musical gear for 40+ years, where they get the snot beat out of them on a consistent basis and reliability is a must. Sonic characteristics are also a major factor. Over the years, my personal experience with tubes in that arena has directly effected what I've chose to use under less strenuous conditions in my home audio gear.

When it comes to Russian tubes, it's definitely SED first, especially for power tubes. When I can find them at a reasonable cost, I'll still snag and tuck away American (RCA, GE, Sylvania, Amperex) and British/Euro (Mullard, Phillips, Telefunken) tubes because the metallurgy in them still remains head and shoulders above anything being produced these days.

 

[gogofast]

my experience is limited with chinese tubes more so than russian tubes, but let me just say this: i've never come across a used chinese tubes that tested 'good'. russian tubes have lots of flaws, too, but still better than chinese in my opinion.

 

[Kegger]

It's all a matter of luck of the draw, I've good and bad experiences with both.
There's some good and bad samples of both, in terms of sound and reliability.

As far as most all small signal tubes I'm vintage pretty much all the way, all of
the chinese/russian/any new production 12at7, 12ax7, 12au7 tubes seems to
work just fine but not the sound I'm after in the equipment I use them in. For
me it's RCA for bang for the buck and mostly Amperex for cream of the crop.