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RE: 7591(A)

Fender, hi again. Yes. 7591/7591A and 6GM5 internals are identical. Electrical specifications also - the same. Restoring a McIntosh MC-225 a couple of decades ago started me on the 7591 road. For the most part before that I didn't pay much attention to the type. This was just at the time GE retired from the receiving tube business and the GE plant at Owensboro KY (the old Kentucky Radio tube plant) stopped producing. There was an interim arrangement to continue manufacture of some types funded by a small consortium. 7591 was one such type. When GE took their hands off the process QC must have suffered. I obtained a quad of these new 7591A at this time and eagerly tried them out in the MC-225. Yikes. Odd fuzziness of tone. Strange distortions that didn't make sense. I was trying this and that to get to the bottom of it when my wife passed through the room where I was working and said quite innocently, Maybe its those tubes. I defended the new tubes at first. They looked OK. I think they even measured fine. Then after pondering it for a couple of minutes I replaced the GE with the old McIntosh 7591 (Westinghouse) and the fuzz, odd distortions, and horrible sound was replaced with magic by comparison. I was thunderstruck. Rita was so good at this kind of thing. I began to research the 7591 a bit and kept a look out for 7868, 6GM5, and 7591. Even then the 7591 had been driven into near extinction and prices were high and rising. There were so many integrateds and receivers built that used this short but powerful tube they were being burned up quickly. I managed to secure a stash of NOS 6GM5, built Novar to Octal adaptors, and was off to the races.


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  • RE: 7591(A) - elektron 09/29/0917:31:26 09/29/09 (0)

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