How To Tell What Tubes To Keep

[Trout]

Oh Boy,

I am most likely going to regret this but here goes.

Say a guy happens upon an old TV/Audio/Appliance repair shop in a tiny town in southern Illinois.
The owner of the 40 year old store has passed, And the wife is auctioning the Estate/Business & entire warehouse of stored components, TVs, Sams Photofacts, Cases of Can Capacitors, Resistors, And a Couple Thousand Tubes, Tube caddies, & more.

Now, Is there anybody that has a master list of Tubes that are worth saving?

OK Dumb Question All tubes are worth saving, I mean worth devoting energy on other than bag N boxing them for further storage, Or overloading Ebay with real NOS gems.

I know the answer as far as the usual 12A_7's, , 6_6 and many others.I did search this forum for posts of this type, But the few lists I found Seemed short compared to what might exist.
I am talking Valuable Sweep Tubes for audio. Tubes with the compactron style bases Ect. As well as other unusual numbers not commonly mentioned here.
Examples Like
6LR6 Beam Power Tube
12GC6 Pentode
6BQ6GTB Beam Power Pentode And many others.

I really dont understand the curve charts and the therories on tubes to determine their use for audio, I am a fairly active hobbyist and Enjoy tinkering with anything audio.
gene

BTW, I can no longer fit a car in my 2 year old 3 car garage.

[karma]

u could put them on ebay, just pick up a tube tester first test the ones your going to sell. i only wish i had the problem of having so manny tubes

[Trout]

Originally posted by karma
u could put them on ebay, just pick up a tube tester first test the ones your going to sell. i only wish i had the problem of having so manny tubes

Have a Tester, Actually, Aquired another with the tubes.
My biggest fear is letting go to many yet unknown gems. Seems like there are SOOooo many different undiscovered great audio tubes.
I will have to let some of this collection go, as I am sure many have no uses other than what they were originaly designed for. Great for Vintage restorations Ect.
gene

[amperex]

An old TV & Radio repair shop in downtown Bay City, MI is reported to have a basement full of tubes.

[tubelab.com]

Unfortunately my answer has always been to keep them ALL. That is probably why I had to rent a warehouse to keep them all. My best estimate is that I have about 100000 tubes. Seriously, if you want to start shrinking the collection, consider eliminating the odd voltage tubes (the ones that don't start with 6 or 12). Unfortunately they don't get much acceptance from the tube community, so they don't sell for much.

I have found only a few TV tubes that I couldn't build something with, but even if you build the coolest guitar amp, no one wants it if they can't buy new tubes at Sam Ash. The audiophile community is more tolerant of oddball tubes, especially if the amp looks cool and sounds good.

Sweep tubes make good audio amps, so keep the ones that you have several of even if they are an odd voltage. I have a lot of 25 and 36 volt sweep tubes, and filament transformers are available.

The triode - pentode combinations are useful for audio amps. 6U8, 6EA8, 6GH8, and others were common TV tubes that work well for audio. Also TV damper tubes make great rectifiers.

Pentode IF amps make OK preamps (some are noisy), but eliminate the remote cutoff pentodes, because they were designed to have a variable gain characteristic, that causes distortion in audio use.

Obviously a good tube manual is a necessity. I don't tend to cross any tube off my list until I have hooked it up and played with it. I have yet found any use for 6AL5's ( i have about 1000 of them) other than target practice. They make a cool pop when you put them in a sling-shot, and shoot them into a concrete wall.

[Trout]

Originally posted by amperex
An old TV & Radio repair shop in downtown Bay City, MI is reported to have a basement full of tubes.

Oh Dont Tempt Me More LOL



You know When you buy a washer or dryer those big boxes? Welp,
The Auction company had got 8 of those, Cut the tops off like Big Trays. Cleaned out the Tube Racks and neatly organized them Like Huge Flats.
I Fit 8 Trays, 5 Tube caddies,5-16X16X8 Tall Boxes,Plus Flats of Can Caps(Sprague, Cornell Ect)Into a PT cruiser with the rear seats out, Not to mention, Test Equipment,Several Old Amps.
Second Trip(another 575 Miles round trip) 6- 5 drawer file cabs worth of Sams Photofacts and aPhilco Predicta <~ (Picture off the web) To restore someday.
Now My Gals wants to Drywall and paint the garage LOL
Great Timing

Gene

[wes-ninja250]

You could always rig your 6AL5s up as comparators with hysterisis (a little output feedback?), and connect them to the control grid of a triode which can switch 24V. Put them in a fancy case, add an NTC thermistor and voila -- a $3,000 thermostat for the audiophile crowd!

You can tell them that with a tube thermistat, their furnace will put out a really warm heat; not sterile air like solid state units.

Wes

[Trout]

Originally posted by wes-ninja250
You could always rig your 6AL5s up as comparators with hysterisis (a little output feedback?), and connect them to the control grid of a triode which can switch 24V. Put them in a fancy case, add an NTC thermistor and voila -- a $3,000 thermostat for the audiophile crowd!

You can tell them that with a tube thermistat, their furnace will put out a really warm heat; not sterile air like solid state units.

Wes

I'll Drink To That LOL

[Geek]

Send all tubes to Geek for proper disposal

[wa2ise]

[i] I have yet found any use for 6AL5's ( i have about 1000 of them) other than target practice. They make a cool pop when you put them in a sling-shot, and shoot them into a concrete wall. [/B]

Run their heaters on 4V and they make excellent AM radio detectors. More linear and less "contact potential".

Or use them for bias supplies. They're good for about 10ma at around 100V or so.

Many FM tube tuners use them for FM detectors.