Reissue- Telefunken

[martin manning]

ok then... Note the bent pin, and the piece of "debris" in the foreground.

[Stevem]

And with that short plate struture do ya think there gonna last 10.000 hours like a real Tely?

[Roe]

For guitar amps is only like long plate tele ecc83s in the PI position

[lord preset]

Let's be fair. One is ECC83 the other is E88CC two very different tubes, you can't use it for comparison.

I was supposed to be fair?

Oops, sorry.

[VacuumVoodoo]

Let's be fair. One is ECC83 the other is E88CC two very different tubes, you can't use it for comparison.

I was supposed to be fair?

Oops, sorry.

I'm a naive old geezer expecting people to play fair. I guess I'll never learn.
We need to have more fun, right?

And with that short plate struture do ya think there gonna last 10.000 hours like a real Tely?

Life time has very little to do with shape/size of the anodes but a lot with quality and amount of electron emitting paste on the cathodes. Plus a few other things that are affected by working conditions, among them the heater voltage. But JJ doesn't provide such boring, useless data. NAd old Telefunken data sheets aren't applicable here. We're left in the dark...
Hmmm....
I wonder if they would sell blanks in bulk so I could do my own testing and selecting and put my logo on them? Others do it, no?
How about something like this:

[billyz]

I gave up on JJ a while back, too many failures right out of the box.

[Firestorm]

I think JJ is merely the vendor in this charade. Telefunken Electroakustic is a legitimate part of what's left of the Telefunken empire; they make microphones (some at least, others appear to be sourced and dressed up). They also sell cables and guitar picks(!). It appears they also wanted tubes to sell and sourced them from JJ. They are the gold pin versions, which with JJ implies selected tubes, so it's analogous to what the original Telefunken did when sourcing tubes they did not make themselves.

[lord preset]

I think regular JJs are a great value in new production tubes, and the premium charged by Ruby for grading them may be worth it to some. But I have to think that if JJ was capable of making a preamp tube that was really worth $38 they would have been doing it already.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Life time has very little to do with shape/size of the anodes but a lot with quality and amount of electron emitting paste on the cathodes. Plus a few other things that are affected by working conditions, among them the heater voltage. But JJ doesn't provide such boring, useless data. old Telefunken data sheets aren't applicable here. We're left in the dark...

True that!

I wonder if they would sell blanks in bulk so I could do my own testing and selecting and put my logo on them? Others do it, no?

If not blank glass, just scrub off the paint and apply your own logo. You don't even need prime quality tubes nor to test and match. Why not, lots of other outfits do it. Everybody from ARS to Gold Aero. Or don't even bother removing the original markings, save time and labor, print that logo, collect those $$, Euro, Kroner, whatever. Gold plate the pins & charge an extre $25. For extra credit and another $10 include a copy of some other company's old data sheet & curves from 60-70 years ago. So what if it doesn't apply to your tube. It will give your tube the "air of authenticity." Marketing, that's what it's all about!

[ToneMerc]

I think regular JJs are a great value in new production tubes, and the premium charged by Ruby for grading them may be worth it to some. But I have to think that if JJ was capable of making a preamp tube that was really worth $38 they would have been doing it already.

They are more than capable, the real issue is that folks have a Walmart low price but willing to accept half ass quality mentality. There is not a viable guitar amp market to support such a price point quality tube.

Not such a good bargin when I have to buy 6 to get maybe 3 good ones.

TM

[donzoid]

Yep...that's their standard short-plate I can tell by the getter construction. They aren't "bad". But they sure don't sound as good as old stock. In fact they are making a new long-plate ECC803S which I just tried and I am "not sure" why they didn't hand-select THOSE as their tone is closer to the old ones.

[VacuumVoodoo]

I think regular JJs are a great value in new production tubes, and the premium charged by Ruby for grading them may be worth it to some. But I have to think that if JJ was capable of making a preamp tube that was really worth $38 they would have been doing it already.

Well, they aren't really continuing the tradition of Tesla, are they?
Yes, JJ is the supplier. Telefunken Elektroakustik have been buying selected tubes (or weeding out the bad ones themselves) from JJ for some time now, mainly for their own use in microphones.
At one point they had an interesting historical article on some old EL34 prototypes and on tubes that were specially selected for use in medical equipment. No data was given as to selection criteria that were applied.
Since it is my understanding the now presented tubes are selected from JJ production and NOT reverse engineered genuine TFK replicas I see no other reason for TFK logo then mercantile.
BTW This from their website:
"TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik's origins began in 2000 when owner Toni Fishman acquired the rights to the name and diamond logo for use in North America."
This means we won't be able to legally buy them anywhere outside of North America. But it doesn't prevent JJ from selling blanks.....or supply versions with customized logos
Ok, need to work some more on my logo, it's not yet obvious that it's supposed to be a magic Ouroboros and not a cheap tin ring.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Well, they aren't really continuing the tradition of Tesla, are they?

No, but they are continuing the "tradition" of New Sensor / Sovtek.

This from their website:
"TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik's origins began in 2000 when owner Toni Fishman acquired the rights to the name and diamond logo for use in North America."
This means we won't be able to legally buy them anywhere outside of North America.

Supports my first comment, considering what happened to Svetlana and their trademark in North America. Note that on New Sensors' website, they could not ship THEIR ersatz Svetlana-marked actually Sovtek tubes to destinations other than US & Canada. Now that Svetlana St. Pete factory is no longer making receiving tubes, New Sensor's prohibition may have changed.

"Acquired the right to use the name and logo." I think we all know that doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the product so named and logo'd.

Anyone want to help me start up my new company. I'm going to acquire the right to use the name and logo "Packard", stick it on cheap Chinese cars & import them to the US and Canada. We'll make a million dollars, Alice!

But it doesn't prevent JJ from selling blanks.....or supply versions with customized logos
Ok, need to work some more on my logo, it's not yet obvious that it's supposed to be a magic Ouroboros and not a cheap tin ring.

Gotta put some teeth on that ouroboros, the dragon/serpent/"worm" that eats its own tail, but I'll hand it to you VV, it's appropriate!!!

Dealing with JJ, how do you know they won't ship you the rejects? Couple of years ago Ruby/Magic told me they were shipped 200 JJ 5AR4, and 199 were defective. I'll bet the sparks were flying after that, and I don't mean just inside those 5AR4s.

[lord preset]

Anyone want to help me start up my new company. I'm going to acquire the right to use the name and logo "Packard", stick it on cheap Chinese cars & import them to the US and Canada. We'll make a million dollars, Alice!

If you go with "Hudson" rather than "Packard Bell" I'm in.

[renshen1957]

And with that short plate struture do ya think there gonna last 10.000 hours like a real Tely?

Hi

Telefunken produced more than one type of the 12AX7 tube. The ECC803S tube has frame grid construction. The "S" is for Spanngitter, frame grid in German

Google Telefunken ECC803S and try and purchase one NOS. Be prepared to spend $2,000.00+ for a pair, maybe $1800 if you are lucky. The tube was used almost exclusively in text equipment by Wandel & Golterman back in the 1960's. And the those old tubes have the lowest noise, microphonics; have the highest gain-balanced matched; plus were guaranteed for a minimum of 10,000 hours. Checkout a TLF ECC803S data sheet, if you can read Germany.

Consensus in the Hi-Fi circles,.the Holy Grail of tubes.

The Tesla factory produced the tube as the E83CC. I wish I had a master case of these with the yellow silk screened labels. The best tube I have ever owned!

Tesla purchased the equipment tooling from Telefunken for the ECC803S back in the Iron Curtain days. Telefunken sent engineers to setup production in Czechoslavakia (CSSSR). So the original Tesla (not JJ) had access to the brains who knew about multilayer cathode information, etc....

Tesla produced the tube for military as well as other sources. A good substitute for Telefunken at a tenth of the price. But keep it a secret.

After Tesla was split and sold as two separate companies, JJ is born.

JJ may have the tooling, but the materials used are different. See www.jacmusic/tesla/tesla-jj.html

I sincerely hope that the tubes will be constructed as before. Unless Telefunken sold their trade secret information and the new Telefunken insists on the old materials and standards I hold reservations as to the new product.

Does New Sensor multitude of purchased brand names equate to the same tubes built on the same tooling?

As to complaints as to the price of of higher quality 12AX7 tubes in production, do you complain about the price of hamburgers going up from 15 cents from the 1960's? If you take the price of a tube from the 1960's, 1970's and adjust for inflation the retail prices are about the same if only marginally higher. And in the last decades of US and European production the tubes were mass produced which lowered the price.

The Northern Electric tube is a TJ Full Music (based on the Mullard box plate) You can source these for about 1/2 On ebay from sellers from China.

Cheaper tubes exist, but the life expectancy or longevity isn't as good.

I had a Electro Harmonics 12AX7 give up the ghost (although the sound was excellent while it lasted) in a PI in a tube stereo after a short time. The JJ 12AX7 lasted equally as short (cracked) but was better sounding than the NOS GE tubes shipped with the stereo. The shuguang Jolida branded replacements still occupy the same positions years later and sound better than the JJ or EH or NOS GE tubes in the position

Your mileage may vary,

Steve