change in sound from different tubes?

[aragorn723]

Hi,

I have been running a westinghouse 3s4 on one side of the quickie and french 3s4 on the other, but haven't noticed any difference in sound between the two sides?  Has anybody else experienced this?  I know this is a subjective kind of thing (lots of telefunken fans out there!) but was expecting more of a difference?  If it helps, my Quickie is totally stock except for 2 100k resistors from the rotary switch to the volume pot to attenuate the input signal...  Any thoughts on this??

Dave

[mcandmar]

Interesting. Those french tubes (Radiotechnique?) i found noticeably brighter sounding than most of the USA made tubes.  I dont remember the Westinghouse specifically as 80-90% of the 3S4 tubes all sound the same, or the difference is so subtle you have to listen to them back to back to notice it.

Of all the tubes i tried in the quickie (literally a few dozen), my favorites are the Philips, Telfunken, Valvo, and early 1940's RCA's. Each are distinctively different than the rest of the crop.  I also really liked the Czech made 1L33's.  I was skeptical about the Telefunkens until i tried them for myself, there really is something special about them, those and the Philips really are a cut above the rest.

One caveat i should mention is my quickie is no longer a pre amp feeding into an amplifier, it has its own pair of output transformers and drives headphones directly so i'm listening to those tubes directly. i.e. DAC > Quickie > Headphones.

[Tubejack]

Philips (Netherlands). Valvo (Germany), Amperex (USA),  Radiotechnique (France), Mullard (UK) , and Ibrape (Brazil) were all owned "country names" of NV Philips of Holland.  Although each had their own manufacturing sites, after WWII, there was cross supply and support across the various markets, and innovation and manufacturing techniques were more freely shared.  Indeed, no two manufacturing plants and processes were identical, but in a sense many of the tubes discussed here share a similar manufacturing heritage. 

[aragorn723]

Sounds like a lot of them are the same, and that there should be at least some difference between the tubes.  I wonder if maybe the sound difference isn't as noticeable between the french tube and westinghouse because of the batteries?  The 36v was testing at 4v yesterday, so the volume has been kinda low.  Just changed the batteries, so maybe it's time for another listen..  What is it you like about the telefunken tubes?  I tend to like a brighter sound (used to love the chinese 6sn7s in my old preamp!) and like the french tubes, but just wonder if i could be missing something.  Sound is so subjective, but maybe there's something more that could be coming out of the Quickie?

Dave

[mcandmar]

Best way i can describe it is some tubes are bright like those french tubes, some have a smooth midrange like the Sylvanias, and some have a strong low end like the RCA's.  The Philips/Telefunken do it all in equal measure, and that combination of strong low end with a strong high end just gives more detail overall.  I think transparent is the word i'm searching for.

I bought a Chinese 6SN7 and it was so horribly microphonic i just couldn't use it, though i really like the Russian 6H8C versions for the reasons you described, very clean and detailed sound to them.

[aragorn723]

I guess the difference in tubes is not as big as the difference in the sound of caps.  Just listened A/B with the french tubes and westinghouse again, there was a bit more bass with the westinghouse (aparently these were actually made by RCA?) though not enough to make a huge difference.  Maybe one day if I have a few extra bucks laying around the Sylvanias and Philips/Telefunken would be fun to play with.

[aragorn723]

on second thought, the Westinghouse tubes sound nicer than the french ones..  Just listened to the french ones in both channels for a while, and the treble got fatiguing.  Just switched back to westinghouse.  Now if I can find another one for the other channel...

[mcandmar]

Keep an eye on this seller in Cyprus http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-NOS-3S4-DL92-Haltron-Tubes-4pcs-for-Telefunken-Blaupunkt-valve-radio-/400785489365?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d50ad3dd5, i've picked up a lot of nice 3S4's from him in the past, and always nice tubes like Valvos, Telefunkens etc.  Those Hytron's i know nothing about, if they are made in Holland i suspect they are re branded Philips tubes. Tempted to buy them myself

[aragorn723]

Thanks.. I'll have to check that out sometime.  Funny how just changing one tube made such a big difference!