GOLD LION made in England NOS KT88

[Colas LeGrippa]

This beauty was given to me this week by a friend who works in a used electronic equipment warehouse. This tube was brand new, sealed in a plastic bag.
This baby sounds VERY good. I plugged it in a class a guitar amp ( that I've designed and built two weeks ago). I've redone the bias, swapping the 240R  bias resistor for a 300R, that's all.
My good lord, the tone of this goddess made me play all day !!!!!!!! See the pics. Maybe I should have put it on e-bay..I saw three 12ax7's, GENELEX , NOS made in England for....1,200 $ . I could have sold it for 1,000 $ maybe !

[eleventeen]

Pretty cool! Nice present. For as much as it would fetch, I'd be tempted to sell it as well. You could buy quite a pile of 6550's for what that would bring.

[Colas LeGrippa]

Sure I would, but now that the packaging has been opened, it's value has dropped quite a bit......

One good thing: the tone of this tube is awesome.
Since it is used in an open top amplifier, I will unplug it before moving the amplifier, if I have to  ( Should I buy a safe to preserve it from being stolen ? )
You bet I have biased it under the max Pa dissipation, at around 32-33 watts.

Colas

P.S.: you should have seen the eyes of the guy who gave it to me when I told him the prices of the NOS Gold Lions tubes on e-bay......

[jjasilli]

 

[6G6]

Quite a find!
You have to wonder if that's the very last one like that
or if there is a warehouse full of them someplace.

[Ritchie200]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Hey, I'll buy them from you right now for $10 a piece.  That is a FANTASTIC price for something as OLD as they are.  Trust me!

Jim
PS, my Major is drooling from across the room.  Hasn't had a meal like that in years....

[Ritchie200]

With a few safeguard mods, you can bias them upwards in the 40's in the Major and rip like Ritchie at 300watts.  Way over the listed max dis of 42watts each.  Them were some freaky rugged tubes!  Nothing new sounds like them (only the =C= came close IMHO and they are gone now too). That is why they fetch those prices.  You know, $10-$12...

Jim

[Colas LeGrippa]

15 $ is ok ? 

[Ritchie200]

Ohhh ok.  You know, you drive a hard bargain!!  Let me guess, shipping is $1200 a piece?

Jim

[Ed_Chambley]

Notice the test sheets.  They also provided them with the KT66.  They were serious about making a quality audio tube.  I have few of each and I am not using them.  In a couple of more years I may be able to trade them for a House in Jackson Hole.

There are loads of naysayers, but the new production Gold Lions  66 and 88 sound better to me.  And yes, the will hold up to the voltages.  They do not match as well as these, but at 1 40th of the price I can live with it.

[Colas LeGrippa]

I would never have bought Gold Lions tubes, NOS or new production. But now I am considering starting buying them, if the new ones sound even better than the NOS.
My friend has bought a used amplifier that was used for an industrial shaking table or other kinda device, that contains 25 Gold Lions KT-88.......................for 700$.
I told him to swap the gold lions for sovtek, and sell the gold lions. At 200$ each, he puts a couple of thousands in his pocket. ( if the tubes test good...). Can you imagine the transformers that supply the voltage for 25 X KT88 ? HUGE, he said.

[billcreller]

  Not to muddy this up, but is the Genelex a common tube brand ?  The Sunn 200S I just works on had those, KT88s, and I had never seen them before.  Just curious..


Bill

[Ritchie200]

Bill

They were the creme de la creme of manufacturers, the old MO Valve company.  Back in the 70's you could get Gold Lion KT88s for about $25 to $35 a pop and I thought they were ridiculously expensive back then.  However, they were bulletproof.  I never had a problem and the Major beats the crap out of them.  Ha! Now I wish I had bought up a few thousand!  Sounds like most of my shouldah/wouldah/couldah investments.....  MO Valve actually designed the Major for Marshall.

Ed, those EH....I mean new "Gold Lions" are just EH 6550 guts in in a big envelope, there is no mechanical difference across their 6550 and KT88 lines - only the price tags.  I tried the EH 6550 years ago when I was having trouble finding good tubes and I thought they were really harsh and did not last long at all.  That kind of turned me off to the EH tubes - especially when they ripped off Svetlana's US distribution name.

Jim

[Ed_Chambley]

Bill

They were the creme de la creme of manufacturers, the old MO Valve company.  Back in the 70's you could get Gold Lion KT88s for about $25 to $35 a pop and I thought they were ridiculously expensive back then.  However, they were bulletproof.  I never had a problem and the Major beats the crap out of them.  Ha! Now I wish I had bought up a few thousand!  Sounds like most of my shouldah/wouldah/couldah investments.....  MO Valve actually designed the Major for Marshall.

Ed, those EH....I mean new "Gold Lions" are just EH 6550 guts in in a big envelope, there is no mechanical difference across their 6550 and KT88 lines - only the price tags.  I tried the EH 6550 years ago when I was having trouble finding good tubes and I thought they were really harsh and did not last long at all.  That kind of turned me off to the EH tubes - especially when they ripped off Svetlana's US distribution name.

Jim

I am quite aware of what you speak.  They are different today. Construction.  Look at the photos and compare and you will see they have changed them.  I have some from 5 years ago and some I have gotten in the last few months.

Call Kevin at Upscale Audio and see what he has to say about the new design.  Sometimes things change but our opinions do not.

Now I am not saying they will run in a Major with no problems, but I can say I have cranking the snot out of a pair 5 nights a week with 563 plate voltage, or my friend is who I built the first UL designed amp.  I have some real ones as well as mentioned.  Reading current reviews in using them in HiFi and problems have been traced to the amp and not the tube.

I have been using KT88 and NOS Tungsol in Leslie and Dyanco for years and am not being argumentative with you as you know your Majors much better than I do.

What is the voltage demand on a marshall major?

Let me know that and I may come up with a wager if you are a betting man.

Upscale Audio's Kevin Deal reviews the Gold Lion KT88

[Ritchie200]

Ed,

Are you saying I am an old argumentative fart!  Dont you go all Silver Gun on me now!  I thought you were my friend!!

Seriously, sorry if I sounded a little ignorant.  I am really directing that at EH and Groove ur wallet Tubes as I have spent a lot of $$$$ with them with nothing to show but empty promises about 15or20 years ago.  Then, after doing my own research, something I should have done anyway, I found how I had been taken.  Take a look at these two links, direct from the EH site:

http://www.ehx.com/products/6550/product-photo
http://www.ehx.com/products/kt88/product-photo

And now this from the New Sensor (EH) site:
http://goldliontubes.com/ProductHighLight.aspx?ProId=1150

They are all made at the same factory with the exact same guts and architecture.  The only difference is they added a triple getter on the re-issue Gold Lions.  I wish I could dig up an old article concerning this manufacturing shell game, but I can not find it. Maybe EH made them take it down.

This is a great article that dances a little around what I am talking about.  He sells the EH tubes so I'm sure he doesn't want to peeve his supplier.  It does give a great historical timeline about the tube war between the USA and Europe - now Russia and China, and the fakes.  A good read with lots of pics.  A MUST read for anyone interested in buying the real deal.

http://www.jacmusic.com/KT88/kt88.htm

I dont know Ed.  If your ears are telling you good things, good on you.  A lot of the reviews (whether it be amp or HiFi) have reviewers that were born after most of the good tube manufacturers were long gone.  Not to pull the "old argumentative fart" card out, but I can tell you my major sounded much better in the 70's than it does today (no comments about my deteriorated playing ability...).  I had a standard reference through that time and heard how differently it sounded as the new affordable tubes went through it, sometimes only hours before phht (blown fuse), sometimes days.  It runs about 620 on the plates so not much difference from your amp.  Screens are at 619.99999....maybe.  If you have the old real Gold Lions, you can see how different the construction is with the solid plates and overall design.  EH brags about how they meticulously re-created this tube down to the last detail - and they didnt.  It is the same as the one costing $100 less.  I guess those two extra getters are expensive!  There was a blindfold test a while back with some HiFi high altitude nose types and they picked a cheap Chinese KT88 over all the other Russian premium tubes.  Of course I, with my limited range of blown out hearing, can better discern the delicate intricacies of a tube better than those guys!  I mean come on!!!

Jim

[HotBluePlates]

  Not to muddy this up, but is the Genelex a common tube brand ? 

You may have already gathered this from the other posts, but...

Genalex was the UK arm of General Electric (specifically, "British General Electric").

To my knowledge (which is a little limited on these brands), Genalex and MO Valve (the Marconi-Osram company) weren't a part of the Philips conglomerate (which included Mullard, Amperex, Brimar, Valvo, Siemens, Telefunken, Philips, Ei, Mazda and many others). However, all had very high quality tubes (in my opinion).

Now that these companies have gone by the wayside, New Sensor (I think) is marketing Russian tubes under the brand names of Mullard, Genalex and Tung Sol, with the old type numbers that people associate with these brands (i.e., "Genalex KT66 and KT88" and "Tung Sol 5881").

I can't comment on sonics or performance, as I haven't used any of these tubes; I don't go through tons of tubes, but do have a big enough stash of old-stock of the types I use to not need to buy new-production.

[Ed_Chambley]

Jim,
I am not argumentative over this topic as I do not know as much about this as you.  This is all I know.  I have 4 Gold Lions I purchased about 7 or 8 months ago.  I also have some I purchased when New Sensor began calling their 6550, kt88 Gold Lions.  Side by side, the getter difference is quickly noticeable but upon closer inspection you can see construction differences.  Even the plates are taller.  Now I am not going to say they look like the originals I have, but they are very close.

I put a pair in the first amp I built for my friend who is the house guitar player at a large club here in Atlanta.  He has been using them cranked for about 6 months or so.  His backup tubes are KT120s now since I have found them to be more robust.

The KT66 compared to the original Gold Lion look exactly the same, but you can never tell unless you break 2 open and measure the parts.

Now I have a load of old tubes and prefer them to new production in every other tube.  For instance, the RCA 6L6GC is the standard in 6l6 and the only one close is the Philips 6L6GB.  Not saying others are bad as I like the new Tungsol 5881.

In my personal guitar amp I built that needs a KT88, I am using the KT120's and really like them.  In my Dynaco mono I prefer the New Gold Lions KT88.  Could be because they holdup well and if one dies I don't have a heart attack.

My ears are not great either, but on these type I really like the tone of them.  Now that is all I am really saying is they handle voltages and I like them.   Now if they would just put them in a crown royal bag and place them in a padded wooden box it would make them so much better.

Jim, quit making excuses.  You play and sing great.  Also Dawk is a cool guy and is very reasonable with his pricing and very helpful.  It will be a little while before we can get together as he is a busy dude.  Thanks for the tip as that is what friends do.

[Ritchie200]

Ed

Yeah, I guess I need to get out more often!  I just dont go through tubes like I used to back in the day.  I have to live vicariously through you!  A house band is probably 5-6 days a week?  6 months?  That is pretty impressive!  Of course, you have to take into account the superlative design and construction of the amp!!!  Maybe they have made some changes at EH, it has been a while for my frame of reference, but the pics are from the current site?  Maybe they have not updated them yet.  Yeah, the soft felt bags make a HUGE sonic difference!

I like that jacmusic link, he really calls out the chinese and their practice of "real" imitations...  If you don't know what to look for, you can very easily get ripped off these days on NOS tubes.

PM me on your Dawk experience!

Jim