Screw new production JJ tubes!!

[scottosan]

I decided it was time to do my annual power tube rpelacement. I have religiously used JJ's and have had a decent size stash for 6 years. I finally ran out.
I just dropped a crapload of loot on tubes for all of my amps. I am very familiar with biasing amps, so I know it's not me.
(1) quad of JJ EL34's form one vendor
(2) duets and (1) quad JJ E34Ls from another vendor

The quad from one vendor started of sounding like a jiffy pop commercial. I cleaned the sockets and pins and made sure the tention was good on the sockets. No dice. I emailed the vendor and this is the response I got

There are two things that cause this and the most common is a small amount of dust in the sockets, which is why we are adamant about cleaning the sockets. The pins on all tubes just like the finger prints on your fingers so tubes will contact the sockets in slightly different places.

The send thing that will cause a very slight clicking or a scratchy type of noise is thermal expansion. When you switch an amp on in the standby mode the heaters in the tubes come on and start heating up the tubes but the amount of heat is fairly small. Case and point, you can leave the amp in the standby mode and touch the power tubes and not get burned.

When you switch out of standby to the play mode the power tubes get hit with high DC plate voltage in excess of 500 volts. This high voltage causes heat to build up very fast and the heat causes the metal components to expand and when the parts move they can cause a popping or a crackling noise for a few seconds until they move into place. As the parts wear in the noise will usually diminish and eventually go away but it will not cause any damage to anything and is common in about 20% of tubes.

I have never had tubes crackle for more than a few seconds and it was very subtle, but figured I would give them a few days. Today. the crackling became loud then percussive and them I heard a humming noise. "it won't my amp ha?" I put the old JJ's back in an no problems.

I put the suspect tubes into my less expensive modded marshall, and could narrow it down to a single tube.

So, I had a second set that was going to go in my Egnater, and used those in the XTC for I concluded it was a bad tube. These biased fine and were closely matched, but they are still a bit noisy, but not as bad as the first ones I tried. I don't feel like risking the XTC of some shitty tubes, so I put in some NOS svets from the 90's that I had been saving.

So, this left me with (2) duets of JJE34Ls for my JMP's. The first pair were 10ma off So, I then say f'it and I am not going to put any of these POS's in any of my amps. The vendors will replace single tubes, one only carried JJ, and the others will only switch like for like and I think I am screwed because they have a 10 day return policy and I bought them 3 weeks ago.

 

[crwnedblasphemy]

My tech just told me this a few weeks ago that JJ production quality has gone to shits. I like JJ tubes, so get it back on track fuckers!

 

[scottosan]

My tech just told me this a few weeks ago that JJ production quality has gone to shits. I like JJ tubes, so get it back on track fuckers!

I bought a stash in 2003 of about 40 tubes, and never had an issue with those, in any of my amps, or amps I built for others. I have relatively had no issues with any new power tubes until now.

 

[scottosan]

I knew I should have waited for Doug. He was temporarily out of the SED's when I was ordering, so I was impatient and got stuff from other vendors

 

[crwnedblasphemy]

Did you bitch to Bob from Eurotubes?

 

[scottosan]

Did you bitch to Bob from Eurotubes?

Who said I bought them from bob?

I sent an email to the vendor(s). Based on the the reviews of the guy, I am sure he will make good, but the othe quad and (2) duets I got from Antique Electronic Supply

 

[Mudder]

The only JJs that have gotten real good recent reviews are the 6v6. I try to stick with winged c for most power tubes.

 

[scottosan]

The only JJs that have gotten real good recent reviews are the 6v6. I try to stick with winged c for most power tubes.

　The winged C's are $104 a quad vs. $57 for the JJ's, but I guess they are worth the peace of mind.

 

[MrDan666]

I have had really bad luck so far with all things JJ.

Had a quad of KT-77's that sounded terrible when they were brand new and within a week one of the tubes died.

Had some JJ E34L's that died in a very short time, arced and took out a tube socket.

I also bought 5 of the JJ ECC83's and all of them were unusable. Microphonic as hell and they were making this weird buzzing sound.

Needless to say, I'll never be buying anything by JJ ever again. Been using SED Winged C EL34's in my amps ever since and haven't had a single problem with them Also they sound much better IMO and the amps feel better to play when they're setup with SED's.

 

[Jay Strange]

I've also had issues with JJ's no matter where I got'em.
They are wasteful.

 

[scottosan]

Ate winged c's my only tired and true modern option? Anyone tried the Tung Sol EL34s? I don't understand why Bogner ships them now in the XTC's

 

[MrDan666]

The Winged C's seem to be the most reliable and consistent in quality from what i can tell. They're the only current production EL34's i'll use!

 

[glassjaw7]

Just had this conversation with a tech. He said JJ's quality sucks teh balls lately and that I should try the winged c's. Word.

However, my JJ preamp tubes and KT77's are over a year and a half strong and still sound great...must have been from the good stash.

 

[just42dave]

Cryoset.com has the best jjs they are cryonized and burned in 4 24 hrs then precision matched..The kt77 matched perfect in a quad i bought same with his 6l6s...But I sold the amps that had those in it and have only bought 12ax7 and TAD stuff from him since...Give or take various NOS tubes and never once had a prob...200 tubes later...

 

[Dallas Marlow]

I stopped using JJ tubes about a year or two ago after a pretty bad experience with a vendor I will choose not to name, but I've in general horrible reliability with them, and I'm pretty sure they have caused issues with a few of my amps when they blew up... I can't prove this obviously but that whole dirty tube socket shit imo is a big crock of shit. I've seen dirty as shit amps with people just pop in tubes and they fire up, and I was told that my amp which was new from a store probably had "dust" in it from sitting around which caused the tubes to go bad and I needed to purchase an appropriate bias tool as well my DMM wasn't good enough.. Fuck JJ power tubes, I actually had a pre amp tube go out as well, but they are still over all decent for certain stuff.

my 2c

 

[tweed]

The Winged C's seem to be the most reliable and consistent in quality from what i can tell. They're the only current production EL34's i'll use!

+1

 

[scottosan]

Spoke with vendor 1 who is taking care of the situation

 

[killertone]

The Chinese Shuguang Tubes really have gotten very good, and you can't go wrong if you get them from a reputable dealer who burns them in.

+1. TAD tubes have been extremely consistent for me. Many of them are made for TAD by Shuguang and in my experience TAD's testing and QC is excellent. Have not used the EL34 but the 6L6GC-STR is very very good. Works very well in my 9200.

If price is not a concern, SED's (EL34, 6L6GC, 6550) win out every time.

 

[jerrydyer]

ive been postig a lot on this on others forums as well. JJ's are a problem dont buy em.
I had a lot, no joke 50% failure rate.

 

[gbsmusic]

Spoke with vendor 1 who is taking care of the situation

At least he's taking care of you! Its still a big pain in the ass!!