NOS 5881 tubes question

[dragonbat13]

I noticed that NOS tung sol and tung sol rebrand 5881have two circular support wafers with three oval shaped supports on each.

Is this unique to a specific NOS 5881, or all of the pre 90's ones like that?

I had no idea there were so many 5881 variants of "NOS". USA NOS. Russian NOS. Sovtek 90's NOS.

Seems to be a tube that's still realistic in NOS and I may buy some for a couple builds later down the road. But there's so much info out there, and a lot of it is more or less vague when it comes to which are the best.

One build is a pair of 5881 in a 5g9 tweed tremolux.

I must be missing something.

[TUBEDUDE]

The Tung-Sol 5881 made in the New Jersey plant are the best.
Tung-Sol was a privately held company and was run like a laboratory this gave T-S tubes some of the best metallurgy and chemistry that has ever been pulled off in actual production. .
Not to be confused with the Commie tubes camouflaged with the resurrected name.
They also invented the 6550.

[Stevem]

The 5881 was a rugged military version of the 6L6 and as such when you compare the internals of both there are some differences.

[dragonbat13]

So....

The tung sol made in USA tubes are all made in New Jersey. Or Were made?

Is there any particular era that is better? Like the 50's are better than the mid 70's.

What about the rebranded ones? I doubt there any reason to use any one over another, is there?

[martin manning]

Tung-Sol was a privately held company and was run like a laboratory this gave T-S tubes some of the best metallurgy and chemistry that has ever been pulled off in actual production. .

This is from Wikipedia, which has a detailed history of the company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tung-Sol
The source is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20120120213 ... age16.html
The article also lists products and production years by location, including
Bloomfield, New Jersey 200 Bloomfield Ave 1946-1971 Electron Tube Division, Unknown date when closed, possibly 1971

[dragonbat13]

I read that.

But searching around I find some of different eras going for different prices. Mostly on epay.

It must just be that the older ones are less abundant and they are just for looks and period correctness.

I'm gonna go with "if they were made in New Jersey they are all the same".

I'm not a tube rolling snob. And I'm not much for NOS tubes unless they are military grade.

I am gonna dig further and post results.

[TUBEDUDE]

Careful, dissecting NOS tubes by year of manufacture, or only wanting "military grade" sounds like something tube snobs would say.

[Stevem]

The only time I have found it to be worth while to scratch the ground for military NOS tubes is for the matching on twin triodes, better built rectifier tubes, and way way back when for output tubes used in portable record players , or all of the above tubes in the portable tape machines used a long with movie cameras.

To each is own, it’s a hobby within a hobby.