Is it even worth looking for NOS 211?

[Zero000]

What is left of my 211 collection. Spent a long time trying to get a quad of UE and gave up. These were largely bought as singles over a number of years. Tested by a customised Avo two panel tester to allow 211 testing.

 

[BP4007]

Impressive!

 

[oldvinyl]

What is left of my 211 collection. Spent a long time trying to get a quad of UE and gave up. These were largely bought as singles over a number of years. Tested by a customised Avo two panel tester to allow 211 testing.View attachment 158079

wow!

 

[CDawg]

What is left of my 211 collection. Spent a long time trying to get a quad of UE and gave up. These were largely bought as singles over a number of years. Tested by a customised Avo two panel tester to allow 211 testing.View attachment 158079

I'm sorry to hear about your experience putting together a set. I've been in similar situations frequently because most of my amps take sextets for power tubes. I don't think people realize just how much money and time is involved to get a matched set for vintage tubes. At one point I had 17 GE 7581A power tubes to make a sextet. Ended up with 3 quads and 5 singles out of range. Wasn't until I had about 25 tubes where I had some sets of sextets. Now I have leftover tubes to deal with.

I think I could go out and buy 8 or 10 new GE 6550A to make a matched sextet. If I needed to make a matched set out of NOS EL34s I'd probably need to buy about 20 tubes. Depends on the manufacturer what the tolerances are like but it's not hard to tie up a lot of money and time.

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

here´s pair of interesting 211s

Radiorør | FINN-torget

General Electric 211/VT-4C. Et par + et ekstra rør kr 6000,- Ser litt røffe ut utseendemessig, men måler veldig bra. Bilde av testresultater lagt ved annonsen og følger med rørene ved salg. Pris er ikke inkludert frakt. Kan sendes med posten.

www.finn.no

 

[Zero000]

I'm sorry to hear about your experience putting together a set. I've been in similar situations frequently because most of my amps take sextets for power tubes. I don't think people realize just how much money and time is involved to get a matched set for vintage tubes. At one point I had 17 GE 7581A power tubes to make a sextet. Ended up with 3 quads and 5 singles out of range. Wasn't until I had about 25 tubes where I had some sets of sextets. Now I have leftover tubes to deal with.

I think I could go out and buy 8 or 10 new GE 6550A to make a matched sextet. If I needed to make a matched set out of NOS EL34s I'd probably need to buy about 20 tubes. Depends on the manufacturer what the tolerances are like but it's not hard to tie up a lot of money and time.

There's four usable sets in there. RCA, GE, Amperex and very cheap Shuguang my amps came with.

I don't get too anal about the measurements as if I use a tube that doesn't measure as well as the other 3 (within reason) in a four tube dual mono set up, it's completely inaudible to my ears.

The Amperex tubes generally measure stronger than all the other types when they are in good condition. Conclude what you will but they also sound the best in mine and other amps I have plonked them in.

 

[Mfdave]

So, it’s difficult to go through all the slight sonic differences between all these tubes. All the tubes that I have mentioned are actually quite good, very good. If you go down the scale from the Amperex/UE at the top to the NOS GE at the bottom, well the differences down each step are actually quite incremental, and debatable. But if you jump from the Amperex/UE at the top, all the way down to the GE at the bottom, well then, the change is quite dramatic. The better tubes have all the attributes that we look for, deeper, fuller bass, extended highs, transparency and all the terms that we tend to use.

I will say, that how I tend to rank them is just in my system, to my ears and may not work for all. Also, I tend to collect and hoard these rare tubes and probably have not sufficiently burned in all tubes for over 100 hrs each, so some may “blossom” with more hours. I just acquire them, listen for a while and then put them away. In truth I have 8 of the NOS Amperex 211 tubes, all tested and verified NOS, but who can say that each really sounds the same? I have been just using the 2 that I first picked up and make my judgements from that. So, I’m no authority, just a listener and hobbyist.

Currently I’m enamored with the United Electronics with the glass support. Using older Air Tight AMT 211 monoblocks, AirTight ATE 2001 pre amp, with Zingali Acoustics twenty Evo 2.1 30th anniversary and/orHorning Euphrodite speakers and various input sources. Again, only my 2 cents.

very cool…. As you know well, I’m jealous.