• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

Best Socket Material?

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#41
Finding NOS sockets

We have radio fairs (I think you call them hamfests) in the UK. They are excellent places for picking up all sorts of old junk. The other important source is making sure that all your friends and acquaintances know that you really, really want valves and associated stuff. You wouldn't believe the stuff you can be given. Often it's worn-out TV valves, but sometimes it's pure gold.
 
#42
Initial tests of my solderless socket look good.
 

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#47
Are these NOS or of current local manufacture? The only problem I've had with the ceramic design on the right is not electrical but physical - the socket becomes a little loose in the metal sleeve if you are regularly changing tubes, say in an experimental circuit...
 
#48
The ceramic appears to be NOS. The Bakelite is current or recently terminated production. Both are local - made by a company called Delta, The contact pins are quite sturdy. I change tubes on an hourly basis 🙂 but they still hold good. Here is a close up
 

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#51
SUCKETS.

Hi,

Corbato,

I'm quite familiar with both sample you have:

One word of warning, the ceramic one is O.K, my only quible with it is that the solderlugs are rather flimsy and break of rather easily.

The phenolic one should be slightly better in that department and all in all for the asking price you can't really go wrong.

Cheers,😉
 
#53
Tube sockets

I like ceramic sockets with gold pins. If anyone says that the socket insulating material has an effect on the sonic performance, I would like to know how. The gold is good especially for the filament connections. Some audio output tubes utilize 5 amperes of filament current.

I work with really big tubes for a living so I have seen a lot.
 
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