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Post by jacklord on Jan 23, 2024 15:33:35 GMT -6
Looks great but I'd get smashed in customs and import fees as well as shipping Germany-US-Germany. But thanks for the info! I'm sure there's a German or two over here that know something about microphones 😉 |
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Jan 23, 2024 16:25:51 GMT -6
Tubes are usually sold as "tested" but that doesn't mean that they are (spoiler; they often aren't). It's about as scammy a market as unearthed artifacts because buyers cant tell if the seller is lying or not, or maybe just clueless. Old tube testers don't help. I could probably go on ebay right now and, within 10min, find a dozen listings where sellers w/ 100% positive feedback are lying (either selling used tubes as NOS in the wrong box, or selling something as a Mullard/Telefunken/etc when it was not made by those companies). It's unreal what goes on there. Expect to get ripped off. I'm a so-called expert and I still get ripped off. I just received a case of 50 NOS tubes from Europe that was misrepresented by a large parts supplier. That's a months pay gone. It can be tedious and expensive to go through them and, depending how picky you are, end up with a few quiet ones. As far as the safety of the mic, it depends on the circuit. I don't like to leave potentially dead tubes running because I've measured power supplies while this is happening, just to see, and the filament voltage can sometimes go to scary levels. They usually won't "wake up" but you can try a couple things to see if there's hope. One is scrubbing the pins until they shine. A spray won't do it, you need to physically remove the oxidation. You can also try to seat them at an angle. Even though it seems impossible that a tube could be inserted and not make contact, it happens. Many sockets these days have poor tolerances and the oversized pins of the stock tubes stretch the terminals even further. Vintage tube pins are slim and sometimes don't connect. To remedy, tilt the tube at a slight angle (think; leaning tower) to force contact. Just don't let it touch the body of the mic or you'll get hum. Christian, really it’s a simple misunderstanding you assume by NOS the Means New Old Stock , they mean Now Off to Suckers😎 |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jan 23, 2024 16:55:39 GMT -6
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Post by kcatthedog on Jan 23, 2024 17:00:30 GMT -6
You should only be charged for the services not again for the Mike.
Chat with Chad, he turns the stock Wa into more like a boutique Mike and does have tube upgrades too.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jan 23, 2024 17:08:22 GMT -6
Chad was involved with the original Warm designs, so he knows the electronic component weaknesses and where they might have skimped compared to the original design.
I won’t lie if I was doing any actual recording work these days I would probably buy a couple of used Warms send them to Chad and upgrade the capsules.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jan 23, 2024 17:16:10 GMT -6
Looks great but I'd get smashed in customs and import fees as well as shipping Germany-US-Germany. But thanks for the info! I'm sure there's a German or two over here that know something about microphones 😉 I get it but consider this: an affordable fake Pelican case with cut foam and wrapped in bubble wrap will make it both ways, plus is a smart investment anyway ( all my mics live in individual ziplock bags with color changing moisture absorption packs in Seahorse cases with cut foam, well wireless heads and lavs live in ziplocks with the same packs in a rack drawer with cut foam. Cheap long term insurance. Talk to Chad he can probably tell you what customs will run. |
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Post by jacklord on Jan 23, 2024 17:23:34 GMT -6
Looks great but I'd get smashed in customs and import fees as well as shipping Germany-US-Germany. But thanks for the info! I'm sure there's a German or two over here that know something about microphones 😉 I get it but consider this: an affordable fake Pelican case with cut foam and wrapped in bubble wrap will make it both ways, plus is a smart investment anyway ( all my mics live in individual ziplock bags with color changing moisture absorption packs in Seahorse cases with cut foam, well wireless heads and lavs live in ziplocks with the same packs in a rack drawer with cut foam. Cheap long term insurance. Talk to Chad he can probably tell you what customs will run. Thanks for info but even the $350 is well beyond anything I can afford. I've already reached out here locally. I'll get this mic rockin'! |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jan 23, 2024 17:48:38 GMT -6
I get it but consider this: an affordable fake Pelican case with cut foam and wrapped in bubble wrap will make it both ways, plus is a smart investment anyway ( all my mics live in individual ziplock bags with color changing moisture absorption packs in Seahorse cases with cut foam, well wireless heads and lavs live in ziplocks with the same packs in a rack drawer with cut foam. Cheap long term insurance. Talk to Chad he can probably tell you what customs will run. Thanks for info but even the $350 is well beyond anything I can afford. I've already reached out here locally. I'll get this mic rockin'! Chad might know someone in Europe, but do yourself a favor buy a case, even a used one, do not store it on a stand especially in a shockmount! You will at worst take the shock absorption out of your shockmount and at worst damage the mic! Imagine explaining to an Oscar winning composer his treasured 6 months old 414 was not covered by warranty because the original manufacturer supplied shockmount was not meant to be a storage device, been there done that. |
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Post by jmoose on Jan 23, 2024 20:13:54 GMT -6
Now 2 out of 3 Telefunken EF86 have this problem. The EHX, Valvo, and one Telefunken work. I also thought about the PS but it works fine with the mentioned tubes. A bit of Google research brought up a thread on another site that mentioned a PS needs to be tuned specifically for the tube being used. Again, THIS IS ALL NEW TO ME. I've never had a tube mic before. I just happened to want to try the Telefunken after talking to an old neighbor of mine who worked for Telefunken/Osram a million years ago. Once I discovered I personally found an improvement in sound with the Telefunken this became an obsession. ~~~ I am just wondering why this is happening out of my own curiosity. Hopefully just bad tubes. Most tube circuits need to be "tuned" or biased... adjusted for the specific glass in play. Things like plate voltage can & will vary! Think of replacing power tubes in a guitar amp. Even if we have another 'matched' set of EL34's for that old marshall it still needs to be biased, like having the idle adjusted on a car. Now... there's another thought I've heard from a handful of designers, one of them Randall Smith (mr mesa boogie) who say that when cooking up new products its really best to design & pick components based on glass (aka tubes) that are currently available. As in current production tubes, not NOS 'limited supply' glass. That was a thing a couple decades ago when he introduced the Dual Recto heads. Rather then voice the circuit around old Sylvania glass, it was voiced around modern Russian tubes. And really if you put the old glass in maybe it doesn't sound as good, because it was voiced around current production tubes. We know for a fact a company like Warm (and just about every other mass produced anything) is picking components & building around what's available today. They're in the business of building thousands of microphones a year... not a couple dozen like the real 'boo-tweek' cats who do use old glass, which most likely they've been hoarding for a lifetime... So IME if you really want to run old glass in a modern circuit someone's probably gonna have to do some surgery and yes, adjust things and change out some components. See also again - that old Marshall head that needs new tubes... and screen grid resistors... and maybe a cap or two that have drifted out of spec or just aren't in range for what we're trying to do... Or - You could slam the stock EHX tube back in there and be happy? My 3 cents on 'NOS' glass ? At this point in time, and for many years I've assumed that anything labeled and sold as 'NOS' are actually pulls that have at least some amount of hours on them. If you really get into tubes you can sometimes (often?) spot the physical signs of use... both external and internal wear... signs of re-screening where someone wiped an old badge and printed a new one. That sorta thing. The one thing you don't want to see on any tube are white marks around the internals & bottom of the glass/pins... That means the tube has had a physical shock and lost its vacuum. At that point its junk. Cracked glass = No recovery. |
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Post by Coil Audio on Jan 23, 2024 21:28:55 GMT -6
Leave it turned on for 2-4 days and then listen Yep |
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Post by jacklord on Jan 24, 2024 0:41:08 GMT -6
Now 2 out of 3 Telefunken EF86 have this problem. The EHX, Valvo, and one Telefunken work. I also thought about the PS but it works fine with the mentioned tubes. A bit of Google research brought up a thread on another site that mentioned a PS needs to be tuned specifically for the tube being used. Again, THIS IS ALL NEW TO ME. I've never had a tube mic before. I just happened to want to try the Telefunken after talking to an old neighbor of mine who worked for Telefunken/Osram a million years ago. Once I discovered I personally found an improvement in sound with the Telefunken this became an obsession. ~~~ I am just wondering why this is happening out of my own curiosity. Hopefully just bad tubes. Most tube circuits need to be "tuned" or biased... adjusted for the specific glass in play. Things like plate voltage can & will vary! Think of replacing power tubes in a guitar amp. Even if we have another 'matched' set of EL34's for that old marshall it still needs to be biased, like having the idle adjusted on a car. Now... there's another thought I've heard from a handful of designers, one of them Randall Smith (mr mesa boogie) who say that when cooking up new products its really best to design & pick components based on glass (aka tubes) that are currently available. As in current production tubes, not NOS 'limited supply' glass. That was a thing a couple decades ago when he introduced the Dual Recto heads. Rather then voice the circuit around old Sylvania glass, it was voiced around modern Russian tubes. And really if you put the old glass in maybe it doesn't sound as good, because it was voiced around current production tubes. We know for a fact a company like Warm (and just about every other mass produced anything) is picking components & building around what's available today. They're in the business of building thousands of microphones a year... not a couple dozen like the real 'boo-tweek' cats who do use old glass, which most likely they've been hoarding for a lifetime... So IME if you really want to run old glass in a modern circuit someone's probably gonna have to do some surgery and yes, adjust things and change out some components. See also again - that old Marshall head that needs new tubes... and screen grid resistors... and maybe a cap or two that have drifted out of spec or just aren't in range for what we're trying to do... Or - You could slam the stock EHX tube back in there and be happy? My 3 cents on 'NOS' glass ? At this point in time, and for many years I've assumed that anything labeled and sold as 'NOS' are actually pulls that have at least some amount of hours on them. If you really get into tubes you can sometimes (often?) spot the physical signs of use... both external and internal wear... signs of re-screening where someone wiped an old badge and printed a new one. That sorta thing. The one thing you don't want to see on any tube are white marks around the internals & bottom of the glass/pins... That means the tube has had a physical shock and lost its vacuum. At that point its junk. Cracked glass = No recovery. I am super grateful you took the time to share all that. I see there is so much to learn and I fully appreciate what you've taught me with your answer. It all makes a lot of sense. Thank you! |
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Post by bowie on Jan 24, 2024 1:34:04 GMT -6
Tubes are usually sold as "tested" but that doesn't mean that they are (spoiler; they often aren't). It's about as scammy a market as unearthed artifacts because buyers cant tell if the seller is lying or not, or maybe just clueless. Old tube testers don't help. I could probably go on ebay right now and, within 10min, find a dozen listings where sellers w/ 100% positive feedback are lying (either selling used tubes as NOS in the wrong box, or selling something as a Mullard/Telefunken/etc when it was not made by those companies). It's unreal what goes on there. Expect to get ripped off. I'm a so-called expert and I still get ripped off. I just received a case of 50 NOS tubes from Europe that was misrepresented by a large parts supplier. That's a months pay gone. It can be tedious and expensive to go through them and, depending how picky you are, end up with a few quiet ones. As far as the safety of the mic, it depends on the circuit. I don't like to leave potentially dead tubes running because I've measured power supplies while this is happening, just to see, and the filament voltage can sometimes go to scary levels. They usually won't "wake up" but you can try a couple things to see if there's hope. One is scrubbing the pins until they shine. A spray won't do it, you need to physically remove the oxidation. You can also try to seat them at an angle. Even though it seems impossible that a tube could be inserted and not make contact, it happens. Many sockets these days have poor tolerances and the oversized pins of the stock tubes stretch the terminals even further. Vintage tube pins are slim and sometimes don't connect. To remedy, tilt the tube at a slight angle (think; leaning tower) to force contact. Just don't let it touch the body of the mic or you'll get hum. Thank you so much. Great lesson from a master teacher. I started working on pins with "gold" sand paper which I use on my guitar frets but stopped as I was unsure. I will try out your tips and report back. I'm sorry to hear about your situation with the tubes. Someone on another forum referred me to a dealer in Turkey who 'sells old NATO" stock. I don't go for that spiel and think this guy is unloading pulls from companies like Telefunken, Tesla, etc. The only reason I bought the tubes from the guy I did is because I had a good experience with 3 Japanese 12ax7 I had got from him for a guitar amp. After he refused communication with the EF86 situation, I will never go the Ebay route again. I also recently, not recently enough though, learned that many Ebayers actually can buy positive feedback. Something I had never known. Bowie: May I contact you privately? Yes, absolutely. Regarding stock from other countries, you never know unless you get a significant amount of product from them. There was a time when governments were releasing military stock to the public but most of those supplies have been well picked-through, or they're antiquated types and no longer useable in todays' gear. It's possible to buy an NOS case of rejects that someone else already went through. Most of the tubes out there now are salvage. EU and other parts of the world have been really good about recycling electronics. But, this means that there's masses of used pulls on the market now. Pulls aren't always bad. Some of my best tubes are from NOS surplus equipment and modules that went unused for decades. But, it takes knowledge and good equipment to know what state they are in. Old tube testers often rate everything like "new" so even honest sellers can get it wrong. About buying feedback, yes, that's pretty much standard in online retail now. I know a youtuber who sells one of these "Get Rich On Amazon" courses and one of normal practices is buying feedback. Some companies use a "seeding" system where you are given products to try so long as you leave a review but. That's used as a legal work-around. But, if you don't leave positive reviews you might not be sent any more products to try. Ask me how I learned that one.
I think people sort of expect a trading of good for press at this point. I've even had awkward encounters where someone well-known online asks me about items and then seems surprised when I ask them if they would like me to send them an invoice. The idea of essentially paying someone to lie to your customers just creeps me out. |
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Post by jacklord on Jan 24, 2024 1:35:53 GMT -6
So closer inspection with my newly learned knowledge has revealed that there is very slight white around some pins so now I can write this off as a much needed learned experience and move on! Thanks all!
****UPDATE: The "new" NOS Telefunken EF86 arrived today. It is in exact appearance to the other two. It has the same identical marking inside the tube as mentioned above. I put tube in to check and it sounds beautiful. Stronger than the other working Telefunken I have. I just did a quick check and will now leave it running for 2-4 days and see what happens.
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Post by jacklord on Jan 24, 2024 9:36:39 GMT -6
Now 2 out of 3 Telefunken EF86 have this problem. The EHX, Valvo, and one Telefunken work. I also thought about the PS but it works fine with the mentioned tubes. A bit of Google research brought up a thread on another site that mentioned a PS needs to be tuned specifically for the tube being used. Again, THIS IS ALL NEW TO ME. I've never had a tube mic before. I just happened to want to try the Telefunken after talking to an old neighbor of mine who worked for Telefunken/Osram a million years ago. Once I discovered I personally found an improvement in sound with the Telefunken this became an obsession. ~~~ I am just wondering why this is happening out of my own curiosity. Hopefully just bad tubes. Most tube circuits need to be "tuned" or biased... adjusted for the specific glass in play. Things like plate voltage can & will vary! Think of replacing power tubes in a guitar amp. Even if we have another 'matched' set of EL34's for that old marshall it still needs to be biased, like having the idle adjusted on a car. Now... there's another thought I've heard from a handful of designers, one of them Randall Smith (mr mesa boogie) who say that when cooking up new products its really best to design & pick components based on glass (aka tubes) that are currently available. As in current production tubes, not NOS 'limited supply' glass. That was a thing a couple decades ago when he introduced the Dual Recto heads. Rather then voice the circuit around old Sylvania glass, it was voiced around modern Russian tubes. And really if you put the old glass in maybe it doesn't sound as good, because it was voiced around current production tubes. We know for a fact a company like Warm (and just about every other mass produced anything) is picking components & building around what's available today. They're in the business of building thousands of microphones a year... not a couple dozen like the real 'boo-tweek' cats who do use old glass, which most likely they've been hoarding for a lifetime... So IME if you really want to run old glass in a modern circuit someone's probably gonna have to do some surgery and yes, adjust things and change out some components. See also again - that old Marshall head that needs new tubes... and screen grid resistors... and maybe a cap or two that have drifted out of spec or just aren't in range for what we're trying to do... Or - You could slam the stock EHX tube back in there and be happy? My 3 cents on 'NOS' glass ? At this point in time, and for many years I've assumed that anything labeled and sold as 'NOS' are actually pulls that have at least some amount of hours on them. If you really get into tubes you can sometimes (often?) spot the physical signs of use... both external and internal wear... signs of re-screening where someone wiped an old badge and printed a new one. That sorta thing. The one thing you don't want to see on any tube are white marks around the internals & bottom of the glass/pins... That means the tube has had a physical shock and lost its vacuum. At that point its junk. Cracked glass = No recovery. I talked to the tech who does all my amplifier work and he has a lot of experience with Neumann Microphones. He will check my PS, bias it as needed, and do mods to the mic (upgrade capsule, other worthy mods) so I can get this all done locally.
It is so great to get all this info from everyone here on this site. Thank you, thank you! |
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