Asking for a friend

[Clover]

So... asking for a friend... if one were to have been trying to switch tubes from side to side in the dark and not aligned the pins correctly but still tried to jam the tube in the socket like a gorilla trying legos, what replacement tubes would you recommend?  You know, for my friend. 

My friend does dumb things sometimes but he is a pretty good guy. 

[Paul Joppa]

This article has some information:

http://vinylsavor.blogspot.com/2019/01/tube-of-month-6dn7.html

He mentions that several are available with coin bases, which are thought by some to sound slightly better.

[johnsonad]

Clover, thank you for the laugh, unfortunately at your expense or rather that of your, 'friend'.

I rolled many of these tubes when i had a SEX amp.  They all seems to be made by one or two companies and relabeled.  Look for tubes with black plates on both plates.  I had one tube with a grey plate and a black plate, that was an odd one.  The Tung Sols sounded nice but the relabeled Conn tubes sounded just as good. In the end for some reason to my ears the tubes with black plates just sounded a little better than the others. I didn't try any of the coin based tubes.....

[Mucker]

Are we talking about 6FJ7 or 6DN7 tubes? Lots of embarrassing things occur in light challenged conditions.  My friend told me that. Uh. yes I have a friend.

[Clover]

I've got, I mean my friend has the 3.0 with 6FJ7.  Thanks everyone.

[Paul Joppa]

In that case, try http://vinylsavor.blogspot.com/search/label/6FJ7 instead.  :^)

[Doc B.]

Is the tube broken or did the pins just get bent? Bent pins can be straightened.

[Clover]

I know this may surprise you all, but I did it.  Yup, no friends.  I cracked the tube trying to jam it in.

[Tom-s]

Sounds horrible. If you’re European based or have a hard time finding the tubes.  PM me. I have plenty pairs 6FJ7 (both build types) left over. Since I started eXperimenting with my S3X and it’s now using E55L (inspired by my Mainline).

[Paul Birkeland]

How did you end up dealing with the 200V limit on the E55L plate?

[Tom-s]

From experience I learned not to run them at max dissepation.
I used about 130V plate-cathode and 20mA current or thereabouts.

Maybe they still swing over 200V but that’s ok.

Don’t remember how I got there. I made a topic on this forum a few years back.
It’s been a daily driver at a friend for years now. It’s ‘borrowed’ so should get it back someday. 
When it’s home (if ever) I’ll measure voltages to see how it’s doing.
With low dissepation the E55L lasts forever.

Edit: Here it is: https://forum.bottlehead.com/index.php?topic=12766.msg116757;topicseen#msg116757