Tube Testing!!

After years of being asked "who has the best tube?", "which tube last's the longest?"

We've decided to put them to the test!!

We've emailed the major manufacturers of vacuum tubes and asked them to send 2 samples of there most most popular tubes,

one for a reliability test and another for a stress test. The results will be posted on this page after the conclusion of the test.

The catagories are Power (6L6, El34,El34, 6v6, Kt88..) and Preamp (12ax7, 12at7, 7025...).

The test are independant with no bias (no pun) and whether or not the manufactures send a sample, the major bands will be tested.

We expect the test to last 6 months, with weekly measurments being posted, so stay tuned. 4/27/08

We have had good responce from two manufactures and GREAT reponce from one other. The responce of the manufactures will also be posted at the end of the test as it directly infulances the buying decission and is refecltive of customer service.

The opinions expressed in this website are that of Savage Custom Amps. Your testing data may very and we do not indorse any brand of vacuum tube, the viewer may interpret the data any way they may choose. Brands and brand copyrights are that of the respective manufactures.  

The first Data is in. This data contains the first stage of power testing at lower plate voltages and high frequencies.

Our apologies to "Sovtek" for spelling their name wrong in the table data.

The data in Table 1 contains four 6L6 Pentode Beam power tubes.

Table 1) Pe =Plate Voltage DC, Pi = Plate current in ma, Ke= Cathode Voltage, Ki=Cathode Current ma, G1= -Dc Voltage and Vp-p =peak to peak.

The graph above shows the 4 tubes. Pe on the Y axis and Pi on the X axis. It also shows Ki.

Thw wave forms shown are for the first line of data in Table 1. at 50V plate voltage. The frequcency is 18khz. High for audio tubes, but this is the first of Power handleing tests. Note the Table data and the linearity of the Ruby tube.

The next listing is for JJ tubes to be listed shortly.

EL34

Some data is in for three brands of EL34's.