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Re: What's in Your tube box?

Thanks for the nice words!
Actually I'm up in the Great White North, and have a weakness for all the "Anglicisms" that the Brits use. I guess I read too many of their publications and am too enamored of their "Valve" scene.
Yes, you can exactly swap the superior 6AQ5 for the 6V6. It will bias identically, but obviously it isn't the best retrofit, owing to the much smaller socket which would need an adapter plate or the like for fitting into the larger octal hole, not to mention the pin-outs being totally different and the cosmetic appearance somewhat less satisfying! Not a problem for me, since I care about the sound, and to hell with the looks! I can always kill the lights in the room, and watch the pretty ones in the "ugly" amplifier! As it is I run a vintage Bell 6V6 amp and a Voice of Music 6AQ5 job. I can't see the valves in the Bell, since it looks so sharp with its cover on! I run the VOMIT (it's an integrated, see) on its' side with wires coming off of it, so I can't see the little valves anyways, and even if it was put back together, its' lid is a slide-off job (think valve QUAD preamp here), so it isn't too happy running with exposed valves anyways. The reason I have it apart is I messed with triode-converting the thing (subtle, but clearly audible in a stock unit and very nice with it), and the hum level rose so I had to add significant temporary electrolytic capacitance to the HT supply to bring it down. I prefer "real" electrolytics, I generally find the "audiofool" parts to be nothing other than poorly-made, overpriced GARBAGE, particularly Elna Cerafool & Ruby-CON JOB Brack Grate crapacitors, which are significantly WORSE sounding and performing than generic Philips high-voltage axial can caps, not to mention any American "Computer-Grade" capacitor made by anyone! Not to mention the lousy Sidereal Kraps, the mediocre MIT jobs (which at least are well-made, just not worth ANYWHERE near their laughable prices) or the miserable Caddock resistors...
Yes, you can substitute many of the valves I mentioned for the 6DJ8, best though to check the anode voltages with a 6DJ8 before and make a note of them, then see how close you get with any of the subs. If the anode voltage climbs any more than 20%, you may want to try another type instead. I would think the types I mentioned should bias fairly closely, but I'd be lying if I told you that I could say that for absolutely certain...
These other types, like 6BQ7 and 6BK7, or the 12AV7 that I had omitted to mention, don't sound quite 6DJ8-like. They sound much more ECC81/12AT7-like in tonal balance and character, but aren't quite as nasty. Still, the 6BQ7 in particular can be rather noisy, both microphonic and worse, "crispy/crunchy" in terms of residual noise.
They are best put into a power amp that needs a bit of "waking up".
If you are looking for preamp use, then the 6BK7 and particularly the 12AV7 are better choices...although I go for 12AX7 types over the 6DJ8 family EVERY time in a phono stage, and the 12AU7 types over the 6DJ8 family EVERY time in a line stage, too!
But yes, there are all these other great tubes out there. Even if they're not quite as good as the more common audio types they resemble, the new production post-Communist Garbage (and in the case of China, just plain "Communist Garbage") puts a new spin on things.
Most of the new valves are so lousy sounding (I just heard the Sovtek 6SN7 for the first time last week, DISGUSTING! I RIPPED the valve out of the preamp in question, and WHIZZED into the garbage pail located at the opposite end of my listening area! It ricocheted off a metal drawer, unfortunately not breaking in the process, before it jammed itself into the wastebacket proper. It had so much hum and buzz from filament to cathode leakage it raised the noise floor of the unit an easy 30db, but it was the SOUND that was most offensive, the noise was nothing by comparison! I installed some old American Sylvania job and breathed a deep sigh of RELIEF when beautiful music once again came out of the preamp) that even these industrial odd-ball things make a far better sounding substitute! And some of them do sound amazing, like the 6528 and 6336, the 6414, 6350 (a fabulous and superior 12BH7 substitute, BTW), 12AH7 and 6AQ5. No doubt there are many others, most of them sound surprisingly passable, the main problems are usually microphonics and heater-to-cathode leakage, but then the latter is a chronic problem with all the Russian valves, anyways.


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