NOS Vacuum Tubes - A Guide to Upgrading your Chinese Tube Amplifier

NOS Vacuum Tubes – A Guide to Upgrading your Chinese Tube Amplifier

Buy Upgrade NOS Vacuum Tubes by Amplifier Name easily here

There are many newer Vacuum Tube Amplifiers on the market that are built around the Chinese Stock Vacuum Tubes. Some are budget and some are High End. Fatman, Nobsound, Little Dot and Douk Audio are all good examples and can benefit from Tube Rolling.

Most budget types are based on direct copies of the (now Vintage) Russian Military equivalents which are far superior in Build and sound quality. This is because such vacuum tubes were developed with no expense spared for the Elite USSR Military. They often were required for highly sensitive surveillance equipment and were ruggedized for reliability and tight specification.

Modern Chinese Vacuum Tube Amps can be very good but are restricted by the cheap mass market valves that are produced purely for consistency and cost restraints.

Chinese Tubes such as 6J1, for instance are a direct copy and hence a direct equivalent of Russian 6J1P etc, etc. Whilst there are many ‘near equivalents’ available on the market from Europe and USA such as Mullard, Seimens and RCA, they are not identical in specification. It follows that the Russian Military Originals will be in most cases both an excellent and safe tube upgrade for your Fatman, Nobsound etc.

Russian Military Vacuum Tubes:

Here are some examples of the USSR Military Originals and their Chinese mass market counterparts:

6J1 equivalent 6J1P

6N1 equivalent 6N1P

6N6 equivalent 6N6P

6N2 equivalent 6N2P

With most Russian Vacuum Tubes you will often find a version with a suffix after the ‘P’ such as -e or -ev or -vi. For example – 6N1P-ev. These indicate a very high spec and extremely long shelf life, often up to 5000hrs. They usually have Nickel Plated Pins also which retards oxidation and improves conductivity.

Where a vacuum tube is described as ‘NOS’ it means ‘New Old Stock’. These are surplus unused stock from when the USSR finally folded in late 1991 and can date from the early 1960s.

All NOS Russian vacuum Tubes contain a relatively high proportion of rare earth metals. These can include Gold and Strontium, Thorium & Barium. In the 1960s and 1970s these were more abundant but as they become more and more scarce, Manufacturers were forced to compromise.

Some of the Vintage 6N1P-e from c1967 are a fine example but now quite rare. Hence, many of the modern Chinese copies are of poorer construction. Rare earth metals are considered to enhance both odd and even harmonics which produce a more holistic and realistic sound across the entire spectrum.

We offer an extensive range of USSR NOS Vacuum Tubes which can be purchased by Amplifier or Chinese Tube name making it a piece of cake. All our pre-amplifier vacuum tubes are fully matched and tested prior to dispatch. They also come with free anti-Vibration silicon tube dampers further improving sound quality.