What a lucky guy you are, boywonder!
With the diamond at it's base it obviously is a TELEFUNKEN ECC803S! Counterfeiting the diamond takes that much effort that no one has tried it yet.
Congrats!
Well, thanks! (I think....) before I break out the champagne....there area no seams in the glass either.....and the gold pins are mighty shiny for a 50 year old tube.
I only have one of these, so it won't do me much good in HiFi anyway......if it's authentic I'll probably sell it to fund other projects.
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IIRC there shouldn't be seams on a Telefunken tube (I have a number of different types), and the gold will look as new in 3000 years as it does today providing the plating is thick enough, and it hasn't been plugged into a socket frequently enough to wear it.
Thanks Kay, DF & Kevin!
I checked a few of my other Tele's and no seam.....
Usually the owner of the item in question is attempting to convince others that the item is not a fake.........
I'll have to test it on my Hickok; it looks new.
now back to our regularly scheduled programming....
I checked a few of my other Tele's and no seam.....
Usually the owner of the item in question is attempting to convince others that the item is not a fake.........
I'll have to test it on my Hickok; it looks new.
now back to our regularly scheduled programming....
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Good luck! And don't forget to mention terms like "TELEFUNKEN", "ECC803S" (of course...), "diamond button", "famous frame grid construction", "special quality" etc. in your offer. These will bring you the money you desire!
This is only half on-topic. I recently purchased an assortment of newly manufactured dual triodes to test, among them 2 Tung Sol 12AX7's. At first they were both great, one of the best in my application, but after a few weeks of testing (lots of amp power cycles) one of the Tung Sol's developed a horrible noise. It sounds like an intermittent connection, very scratchy sounding, the gain wavering up and down it seems. The other one is still running very well. It sounds so good that I want to buy more, but not if there's a quality issue with them...
Have you swapped tube positions, to verify that the problem follows the tube and is not a cold solder joint, etc?
A sample size of two is not enough to make any assessment of reliability should that tube turn out to be bad. (Although unfortunately the trend may prove valid in a larger sample.) You need a larger sample size, and I generally look at a sample size of ten pieces as the absolute minimum for such an assessment.
Anecdotally speaking it is true that current tube production is generally less reliable and consistently has a higher infant mortality failure rate than would have been the case at the height of western tube manufacturing. Lots of corners cut, poor design, poor processing, materials issues, and relatively lax QC are all reasons for the difference in quality..
I avoid most current production for my own projects, obviously for commercial products it's something of a different matter.
I'd recommend buying at least a couple more pairs and evaluating them as a lot.
Anecdotally speaking it is true that current tube production is generally less reliable and consistently has a higher infant mortality failure rate than would have been the case at the height of western tube manufacturing. Lots of corners cut, poor design, poor processing, materials issues, and relatively lax QC are all reasons for the difference in quality..
I avoid most current production for my own projects, obviously for commercial products it's something of a different matter.
I'd recommend buying at least a couple more pairs and evaluating them as a lot.
At first I thought it must be a bad socket, or solder joint, but I've swapped in several other tubes since then without problems. I will try that tube again tonight (I stopped using it completely since it was affecting my tone tweaking) to see if it was a dirty socket contact, or something like that.
kevinkr said:
I totally agree, however, in light of the current thread, it makes me doubt Tung Sol. The EH and Sylvania's I got are working great. Even the no-name Chinese one is still working fine, but again, the sample is so small that maybe it's a fluke that any of them work.
But thanks for reminding me, I've got some old Roger's 7025's that I should throw back in there now that the project is done.
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I handle 100s of the Tung-Sols, and I have almost none come back from customers. I reject a few from my own testing of each batch, but not many at all. I'd use them in my own gear without hesitation.
For those of you who think that NOS stuff is virtually 100% reliable - I just rejected almost 50% of a batch of (30) 12AT7 1950s NOS GEs, and about 20% of a batch of (20) GE 12AY7s of the same vintage.
One last thing... In doozerdave's post he wrote:
Often just the act of plugging in and unplugging tubes into a given socket will at least temporarily restore good contact. Get some small dental brushes or something similar and a god contact cleaner (I use DeOxit D5 by Caig), clean the socket and the Tung-Sol's tube pins thoroughly, then try the tube again.
As far as comparing reliability with NOS - keep in mind that NOS tubes are almost always screened by the sellers before shipping them out, whereas some current production tube sellers just send out the stock they receive and hope it all turns out okay. Obviously this skews any comparison. Also, the fact that at the present time (in the case of many tube numbers) the new stuff outsells the NOS by a large factor. So the mathematics dictates more bad examples of current production will enter the market and are more likely to be reported.
That's my $0.02 anyway...
For those of you who think that NOS stuff is virtually 100% reliable - I just rejected almost 50% of a batch of (30) 12AT7 1950s NOS GEs, and about 20% of a batch of (20) GE 12AY7s of the same vintage.
One last thing... In doozerdave's post he wrote:
Often just the act of plugging in and unplugging tubes into a given socket will at least temporarily restore good contact. Get some small dental brushes or something similar and a god contact cleaner (I use DeOxit D5 by Caig), clean the socket and the Tung-Sol's tube pins thoroughly, then try the tube again.
As far as comparing reliability with NOS - keep in mind that NOS tubes are almost always screened by the sellers before shipping them out, whereas some current production tube sellers just send out the stock they receive and hope it all turns out okay. Obviously this skews any comparison. Also, the fact that at the present time (in the case of many tube numbers) the new stuff outsells the NOS by a large factor. So the mathematics dictates more bad examples of current production will enter the market and are more likely to be reported.
That's my $0.02 anyway...
It seems that I have to retract my previous statement about Tung Sol reliability. I spent about an hour last night testing the suspect tube (and others) and could not make it fail again. It must have been a dirty socket connection. I'm quite happy about this, but sorry I prematurely polluted this thread. I cleaned all the sockets before starting the project, but must not have done a good enough job on that one.
Here is a 6N17B datasheet in both Russian and English language. Enjoy!
But bear in mind that this subminiature double triode dissipates more than those common tubes in the 12AX7/12AT7/6SL7 range to which it can be compared. Due to it's much smaller envelope I think that it necessitates adequate cooling, e.g. by fins or by mounting it with a clamp to the metal chassis.
Best regards!
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