[33-45[_3_]]

http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQsassZ33-45

[Patrick Turner]

33-45 wrote:

http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQsassZ33-45

Unfortunately, photos on the Internet are deceptive unless they are high
res and fill up the whole screen with the item.

I suspect the gettering on the 13Ei looks a bit faded. The buy it now
price of aud $450 for the pair is way too high.

I have yet to make a purchase using E-bay.

I thought E-bay was for people to sell junk and get paid something
rather than have to pay to have it taken away.

Patrick Turner.

[[email protected]]

On Mar 10, 6:40*am, Patrick Turner wrote:
33-45 wrote:

http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQsassZ33-45

Unfortunately, photos on the Internet are deceptive unless they are high
res and fill up the whole screen with the item.

I suspect the gettering on the 13Ei looks a bit faded. The buy it now
price of aud $450 for the pair is way too high.

I have yet to make a purchase using E-bay.

I thought E-bay was for people to sell junk and get paid something
rather than have to pay to have it taken away.

Patrick Turner.

Only purchase those things from eBay that if they come disassembled in
a brown paper bag you would be just as happy with the price you paid
including the shipping.

This also means tubes.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[Patrick Turner]

" wrote:

On Mar 10, 6:40 am, Patrick Turner wrote:
33-45 wrote:

http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQsassZ33-45

Unfortunately, photos on the Internet are deceptive unless they are high
res and fill up the whole screen with the item.

I suspect the gettering on the 13Ei looks a bit faded. The buy it now
price of aud $450 for the pair is way too high.

I have yet to make a purchase using E-bay.

I thought E-bay was for people to sell junk and get paid something
rather than have to pay to have it taken away.

Patrick Turner.

Only purchase those things from eBay that if they come disassembled in
a brown paper bag you would be just as happy with the price you paid
including the shipping.

This also means tubes.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

A disembled 13E1 would be a bunch of broken glass and bits of metal, and
although maybe you'd not be saddened to see every tube smashed to bits,
many people value tubes.

Music flows from 13EI when properly set up. There is a knowable going
rate for their purchase from quite a few tube retailers and its a lot
less than $225 each. The 13E1 isn't being manufactured now and probably
never ever will be made in future because I suspect that the worldwide
purchase trend with tubes will nose dive due to many people who were
well off suddenly becoming much poorer in the present economic climate.

So anyone buying a pair of 13EI for a stereo amp should buy a six pack
for spares.

Although the 13EI is a wonderful nice big tube for music, its SE class A
performance can be bettered with a quad of EL34/6CA7/5881/6l6GC etc, and
anyone building an amp which takes 4 octal tubes to do what the single
13E1 does can pop many different tubes in and isn't stranded if world
tube supplies crash. And New Sensor are offering a good deal now if you
buy $1,000 worth in one hit.

Before this economic crisis I built a pair of monobloc amps which use
two 845 each for 55W in SET for what I consider to be the best possible
sounding and measuring SET ever made. But I smelt trouble with 845
supply in the future so I designed and built all the transformers so the
amp could work with a pair of 13EI or a quad of KT88/6550, or better, a
quad of KT90.

Flexibility of design including accessible taps and re-arrangeable
windings on transformers means that my customer with the KR845 tubes in
his amp won't find that his purchase become useless if he cannot obtain
spare 845.

The price of KR845 has risen and the aud$ has declined making one KR845
cost aud $1,000 to import from an american distributor. But its not
possible, because the favoured 845 distributor in the US won't export
his spare 845.

So 845 supply has effectively dried up and the Chinese appear not to be
making any.

OK, so if my customer breaks an 845, or one decides to expire, OK, I can
convert the amp for 4 x 6550 at less cost than buying one replacement
845.

Patrick Turner.

[33-45[_3_]]

Patrick Turner wrote:

Music flows from 13EI when properly set up. There is a knowable going
rate for their purchase from quite a few tube retailers and its a lot
less than $225 each.

Thanks for the free publicity Pat..very much appreciated.

Seeing as you're so good in supplying free information perhaps you'd
like to inform us all where we can purchase these tubes for $260 (aud)
$168 US per pair....(after all that is the "no reserve" starting price)
I require 20 pairs of new in (sealed) box STC branded tubes...any
discount for bulk orders?

I await your reply...

[[email protected]]

On Mar 11, 4:42*am, Patrick Turner wrote:

A disembled 13E1 would be a bunch of broken glass and bits of metal, and
although maybe you'd not be saddened to see every tube smashed to bits,
many people value tubes.

I think you miss the point.

Purchasing tubes at-auction, at a distance, from an unknown source,
and for real money is a bit like bear hunting. Sometimes you get the
bear, sometimes the bear gets you. In other words, pay no more than
you would for duds. If you are purchasing from a reputable source who
understands and stands behind the product *and* has the means to test
tubes properly before sale - that is a different matter.

My approach to eBay is pretty much as a bottom-feeder. Perhaps this is
because there is ample other opportunity to find good audio 'stuff',
tube and otherwise, as this region of the US was a major producer of
electronics pretty much from the time of Edison well into the 1980s
with the ultimate demise of RCA as a maker of vacuum tubes. Within 50
miles of where I sit, we had tube plants operated by Sylvania, RCA,
and Philco, and component plants operated by Acrosound, Dynaco, RCA,
Philco, Sylvania, Muntz, A****er Kent, Magnaqest, Fisher, Theil,
Raytheon, Westinghouse, Bendix, Mars (yes, the same family as the
candy-bar people made (and still makes) military and civilian
electronics) and at least a dozen smaller shops and names. TRW made
resistors here, Sprague made caps here. The stuff is thick on the
ground. And that thickness has kept prices at fairly reasonable levels
historically. I cannot go to any substantial flea-market without
finding something vintage by Dynaco, Eico (75 miles), Harmon Kardon
(90 miles) or similar.

I guess if one were in a more isolated area where there was no
supporting history or infrastructure, eBay would be a much more
attractive source. And perhaps under those conditions one might also
tend to mythologize tubes.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[Patrick Turner]

33-45 wrote:

Patrick Turner wrote:

Music flows from 13EI when properly set up. There is a knowable going
rate for their purchase from quite a few tube retailers and its a lot
less than $225 each.

Thanks for the free publicity Pat..very much appreciated.

Seeing as you're so good in supplying free information perhaps you'd
like to inform us all where we can purchase these tubes for $260 (aud)
$168 US per pair....(after all that is the "no reserve" starting price)
I require 20 pairs of new in (sealed) box STC branded tubes...any
discount for bulk orders?

I await your reply...

I paid aud $66 each for the last batch about 5 years ago.

A colleague paid slightly more recently from a supplier in the UK, but I
don't know who that was.


The Oz supplier who sold to me has sold out what stocks he had.

But I am sure you'll find something cheaper if you keep searching but
you may find 40 NOS tubes to be a tall order because there may not be
many around.

Why not use 160 807s, they are cheap and will do the same job?

And as the economic crisis bites, people may try to sell their granpa if
it means survival, so all sorts of cheap deals should come up.

It may be interesting to see how that E-bay sale proceeds.

Patrick Turner.

[Patrick Turner]

" wrote:

On Mar 11, 4:42 am, Patrick Turner wrote:

A disembled 13E1 would be a bunch of broken glass and bits of metal, and
although maybe you'd not be saddened to see every tube smashed to bits,
many people value tubes.

I think you miss the point.

Purchasing tubes at-auction, at a distance, from an unknown source,
and for real money is a bit like bear hunting. Sometimes you get the
bear, sometimes the bear gets you. In other words, pay no more than
you would for duds. If you are purchasing from a reputable source who
understands and stands behind the product *and* has the means to test
tubes properly before sale - that is a different matter.

Well i'd agree with you.

I've never done an E-bay deal; never sold or bought. I have sold things
via my website.
I have an idea what something is worth and advertise it at a price and
some things sell and some things don't. If I cannot sell something over
5 years then OK, maybe I give it to someone here. Who wants an old but
good for its time cassette player? Almost nobody.
Who wants an American DJ TT, nobody. OK, I have prices and anyone is
able to make an offer, but they don't. I have a Phase Linear graphic
equaliser given to me the guy says it works, so I advertise and one guy
wants it. So I check it out and find most of the opamp chips are blown
along with other things. It looks fine inside though, so I tell the guy
its basically stuffed and needs a lot of work. Its worth aud $150
working plus postage. It may be junk but its got good features. I need
to fix it before I sell it, leaving me with nothing, so its not worth
fixing, unless someone wants it knowing its stuffed. But why anyone
would want to use such junk in a system is beyond me, but some people
might just really want it anyway. I have no time to fix it, and so it
gathers dust. I have never sold anything dishonestly like so many e-bay
sellers do.


My approach to eBay is pretty much as a bottom-feeder. Perhaps this is
because there is ample other opportunity to find good audio 'stuff',
tube and otherwise, as this region of the US was a major producer of
electronics pretty much from the time of Edison well into the 1980s
with the ultimate demise of RCA as a maker of vacuum tubes. Within 50
miles of where I sit, we had tube plants operated by Sylvania, RCA,
and Philco, and component plants operated by Acrosound, Dynaco, RCA,
Philco, Sylvania, Muntz, A****er Kent, Magnaqest, Fisher, Theil,
Raytheon, Westinghouse, Bendix, Mars (yes, the same family as the
candy-bar people made (and still makes) military and civilian
electronics) and at least a dozen smaller shops and names. TRW made
resistors here, Sprague made caps here. The stuff is thick on the
ground. And that thickness has kept prices at fairly reasonable levels
historically. I cannot go to any substantial flea-market without
finding something vintage by Dynaco, Eico (75 miles), Harmon Kardon
(90 miles) or similar.

There would be a huge opportunity for someone to restore old gear there.
I get customers buying stuff on E-bay and sometimes they get a real good
deal and sometimes they don't and that's when they come to me for a fix
and generally over time they are still in front if they have spent 10%
of the E-bay price on having me perform repairs.
One guy gets a Dynaco ST70 in good order and good tubes, then a rare
ST80, but it needed a $120 fix, and he also got a pair of Dynaco MkIII
but they need complete re-engineering before they'll be any good.
Transformers are OK, and chassis can be straightened. The basics are
there to make a pair of nice monos.


I guess if one were in a more isolated area where there was no
supporting history or infrastructure, eBay would be a much more
attractive source. And perhaps under those conditions one might also
tend to mythologize tubes.

Between about 1997 and 2002 I collected a pile of stuff. I can't take
any more. There is more stuff out there but it mostly has zero net
commercial value. I have 2 complete Quad-II amp systems but they need a
big fix and I won't sell until I have fixed them and when I get through
present projects. Maybe in a year the world in is deep depression, and
nobody has any money, and people will act queer.

Patrick Turner.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA