Wassup?
Telefunkens are indeed a FABULOUS 12AX7 tube... very spacious almost 3-D performance... especially in vintage High-end tube audio systems in which the differences of good tubes can be appreciated.
I sure dont want this to sound like a dang Spam Trail... truthfully I already get all the business I can handle. But besides my book writing and studio/guitar work, I am also the curator of The Altar Of Amps... and out of this interest I slowly, over the years and out of neccessity, came to the point where I became a vintage tube vendor too. I specialize in acquiring, testing, and matching tubes for vintage guitar amps and audio equipment. I wanted to therefore merely comment on the high prices of tubes out there...
I hate to see people spending so very much on vintage tubes. A LOT of those boutique tube sites are easily double at times what one can actually get tubes for... like on Ebay for instance. Unfortunately, many people have been burned badly buying tubes there, as fully 9 out of 10 sellers on the 'Bay site either don't know what they're doing, or simply have not invested in proper equipment. Most of the so-called "matched" pairs of power tubes for example will be tested for mere emissions on a small $40 tabletop tester one finds out in Grandpa's garage. You get them in the mail, and they cannot even be biased in your amp because they were not tested for current draws... very dissappointing for sure.
But there ARE maybe a dozen sellers on Ebay besides myself doing things PROPERLY, and if u take the trouble to find them u can hook up with vintage tubes for way less.
To save more money, don't be too quick to turn your nose up at used tubes. Remember, many tubes which have been sitting in amps for 40 years still test very well... for mutual conductance, current, and filament life. Again, that decision can rest upon your faith in the seller and his testing equipment. I am confident that, were I to place a pair of great testing Tele's in my amp at this point, that they will out-live ME.
I sell close-matched pairs of great-testing used Telefunken 12AX7's all the time from $79-129 per pair... so there's just one example. Keep in mind that a great many so-called "NOS" tubes sold (even on the boutique sites) are actually very good looking and testing USED tubes. These vendors collect and keep vintage boxes too... and when a tube meets a certain criteria, it is placed on an "original" box and sold as NOS. I know nobody wants that said particularly, but most of the tubes I have purchased from guys like yourself... guys who bought "NOS" tubes from an online vendor and ended up not using them... well, I can easily tell u that many are actually used anyway. So really, how a tube performs/tests becomes the key issue.
More money can be saved if a buyer is more concerned with TONE than cosmetics... in the collectable tube market, a great testing tube with the stencling rubbed off/smeared reduces the retail value of that tube significantly. If u dont CARE that the Telefunken logo is perfect, u can save a LOT of dough. Many times tubes are "Re-Branded" for another company... so one can save more $$$ buy buying, say, a Telefunken 12AX7 ordered by "The Fisher" and sporting that Fisher logo rather than Tele. Same exact tube, different ink sprayed on it... so another way to save money if this isnt your concern at all.
To sum up, merely ASK lots of questions to identify a good tube vendor: What kind of equipment does he use, and what kind of tests can he apply? Does he gaurentee them, or are they sold "as is"? When I test tubes on my Hickok 539C, Maximatcher, and Hickok 209A, I can offer guarenteed money-back tubes with confidence... but most people are NOT going to spend maybe thousand$ on testing equipment just to sell on Ebay. Rather than develope a life-time customer, they are after a sale and then on to the next one. Being informed can lead u to less expensive sources which are trustworthy & experienced.
Best regards
Phoenix Michaels
Stratbasturd @ Ebay
www.altarofamps.com
www.youtube.com/phoenixmichaels
