Telefunken Black Diamond Tubes

The JJ connection makes me a little apprehensive. Their tubes can get pretty harsh. And when you're looking for every small incremental improvement you can make to your chain, the tube can have a significant impact. That said, Telefunken still makes a great production microphone. They put out a good product. I bought one of their reissue 251s with a GE 5 Star 6072 and I was really impressed with the sound and quality of that mic. I thought their 251 was truer to the original than their 47. I'm gonna check these tubes out. Thanks JK

Hmm retool and or greenfield a new tube manufacturing plant ?

I can understand why telefunken decided to build on the known process of jj tubes And to then design in QC improvements.

But even so the double testing and hand selection are significant.

Interesting development , but I have yet to have a bad tube from Christian at proaudiotubes and the personal touch and advice is always appreciated !

...much of what I've learned about tubes was culled from Oliver Archut's posts on various forums over the years...Oliver did tell me onetime, that he had "100's of thousands" of original Telefunken NOS tubes in his warehouse... shortly before his untimely passing, Oliver contributed to a discussion following a 7/14/14 Facebook post by Larry Janus (http://www.historyofrecording.com/larryjanus.html), in reference to the newly re-issued Tele tubes: (http://www.sonicscoop.com/2014/07/12/telefunken-debuting-black-diamond-tube-series-at-summer-namm/)
...these are Oliver's comments, copied & pasted (with the utmost respect to his memory) from that online FB conversation:

"With reference to the new Telefunken tubes, they have nothing to do with the original ones, I sold them the Telefunken name in 2003 but kept the original blueprints..."

"JJ is crap,the tubes look pretty close to the originals, but that is all!"

"...nearly everything you need to make an Telefunken EL34, ECC8X, AC701.... you can buy on E-Bay.... The story that there are banned materials is an internet Phantom. I do own nearly all original blueprints and production manuals of the vintage Telefunken company, but in order to make them you have to make them in Millions to make the affordable..."

"...nearly everything you need to make an Telefunken EL34, ECC8X, AC701.... you can buy on E-Bay.... The story that there are banned materials is an internet Phantom. I do own nearly all original blueprints and production manuals of the vintage Telefunken company, but in order to make them you have to make them in Millions to make the affordable..."

"...you find some more cool pics here...
www.tab-funkenwerk.com/id139.html
www.telefunkenaudiotubes.com/ "

"...there is not much in an EL34, and not as much what is in it, than it is put together (see pic below)..."

"...If you want to make filaments:
www.ebay.com/itm/Sylvania-Tungsten-NS-20-Wire-Roll-480-Meters-/221394625807"

"There are still tons of NOS tube making materials on e-bay, american, german, austrian, etc. So enough for several 100ooo tubes."

(Someone else remarks, "Ran the numbers...$3.50-7.00 in RMT the rest in labor or automation.")
"I do not know how you came up with those numbers, but just the specialty material is about $14 on the standard ECC type of tube, if we go to the EL and KT type of tube just with the Nickel alloys we easy come to $15 if we add the rest $25 is aimed conservative.... The lead in might be cheap but please check out NIP50 what the min. quantity is and if you can find at all... It might be true that you can find a bunch of NOS stuff on e-bay, but there is still some custom smelting needed to go all the way...."

"You can buy a bunch of materials needed at this e-bay seller:
www.ebay.com/itm/Sylvania-Tungsten-NS-20-Wire-Roll-480-Meters-/221394625807 "

"All you need is some Schott AR glass and you can make yourself some tubes..."

"I do have the prints and to make <VF14m> tubes it will be more than a Million Dollar venture.... Where is Paul Allen, or all those crazy guys that pull Apollo junk out of the oceans!"

"The last time I checked about 20 years ago there was still an original AEG sealing machine around...."

"All original frame grid tubes that was GE/Telefunken/WE style were set with solderglass, the RCA/Siemens frame grid tubes were brazed with gold..... JJ tried to copy Telefunken and did not set the grid wire at all... So how good is a framegrid tube, where the grid is still wound loose..."

"For everyone that wants to read more about vacuum technology:
www.amazon.com/Handbook-Materials-Techniques-Vacuum-Devices/dp/0278921124/ "

RIP Oliver!

Strange thing about tubes, it might be different for guitar amps. I have a primo selection of sought after NOS tubes. I tried every major EL34, and the JJ just smoked them all. I mean it wasn't close, it just sounded better, more natural, more power, more classic Page, Hendrix like. So, although I'd bet Oliver's right and that Bob knows it when he hears it, when it came to guitar amp tubes, don't count JJ out to quickly. Lets cross our fingers and hope for the best. I'm looking forward to hearing from someone who's used them. Oliver hand built my mic and we've chatted at AES, so I'm inclined to defer to his opinion.

Same here.  I had a handful of old NOS RCA black plates, a handful of various long and shorts from Amperex, RCA, etc and while each one had a mild difference in sound, the new JJ tubes I bought ended up staying in the amps and replacing the awful sounding chinese generics.  I switched to 6L6GC's from EL34's to get some of the midrange back from the slightly scooped JJ tubes.  Works great as I retain the crispness of the JJ's while staying relatively flat.

I've also tried a handful of these in the tube mics and I stuck with JJ tubes there too.  There wasn't nearly the difference in sound between tubes than that a decent capsule made replacing the cheap one.

Guitar amps are a completely different beast than hi fi gear, preamps and tube mikes.

Yep!

Sitting in my closet as we speak;

No, JJ's aren't (necessarily) good in guitar amps. It's simply a different set of criteria is what Bob's saying....because there's no fidelity concern in a guitar amp (meaning by the literal definition) it can take a wider range of "acceptable/good" tubes.

It's not a lesser conversation--it's just a different one.

Well,
JJ does have alot of the old production lines and processes of the original Telefunken stock. Gone from Telefunken to Tesla, now JJ.
And i really like them alot for consistency. And there are differencies between the last 3/4 tube manufacturers of today.
But there is more myth about this than necessary. There is no special JJ sound or ShuGuang sound. It is more about tolerances in production.
Uli B. very openly spoke out about his tube gear using ShuGuang tubes. His quality assurance processes sort out 80% (!) of all ordered tubes and send them back to ShuGuang. Guess what you get, if you buy a chinese tube. Chances are high that you get a tube that has already failed the QA of one of the big customers...
Similar may apply to JJ or Saratov tubes(new Svetlana/EH/Sovtek brands) or WingedC (former Svetlana).
I have the impression that the JJ tubes i bought until now are quite good, so i guess they may have the smallest tolerances in today's production.
I really like their ECC83S.
Which is, AFAIK, the same like the former Tesla E83CC and before the now silly expensive old Telefunken ECC803S. Same production line and process. Especially funny - Tesla also made an ECC803S which was different to the TfK ECC803S (conventional no framegrid tube, they messed up the names!)...
But well, what do i know, if O. Archut said JJ's framegrid tubes are crap.....i might have to re-research this...i am no tube guru.

So, what happens to the 80% ShuGuang tubes that Mr. B sends back to China? Do they ditch them? My guess is, they send them right back to Big B with the next order, maybe next time, they pass the Big B quality test

I kid, I kid...

or not?

I've always been a bit wary of the new Telefunken outfit in the US. They have nothing whatsoever in common with the original company, yet they market a heritage that's not their own. Their early microphone scam didn't help either. On top, the original Telefunken microphones were rebranded Neumanns and AKGs, they never built U47s or 251s, so the T-Funk USA marketing smells fishy to me. That said, I just bought an M80-SH to use on snares, so there you go. At least it has Oliver's tranny or so they say. Peace to the man!

Get'em while you can. I can't get them stateside unless I want to pay "NOS" prices for tubes made last year in Russia. I've got one set left, but currently have the new Sveltana's...which was just what the shop had other than JJs, which I'd sell the amp before I used in there. The GT Mullard (grey box) SOUNDED really crunchy and nice, but couldn't get a pair to hold a bias--so the shop gave me the Sveltanas instead. Knock on wood, they're not 100% the SEDs...but, they're acceptably in the ballpark...and seem stable. 

Cheap as dirt at GC: www.guitarcenter.com/Svetlana-EL34-Matched-Power-Tubes-212620-i1125638.gc?source=4WWRWXGP&gclid=CjwKEAjwg_afBRD3rpChlqiKt1ESJACwY6NkG6QPo87UbvOlGVPjBY9hemNbgaDnxJcr9dzjm17OahoC78bw_wcB&kwid=productads-plaid^93821215341-sku^212620.386.185@ADL4GC-adType^PLA-device^c-adid^44639487282

My understanding is--this is the NEw Sensor version of the SEDs, which they bought the rights to the name.

And this is the problem iwth ALL this business. I am comfortable with whomever making tubes...whatever company in Eastern Euorpe (JJ) or Russia or China....and other companies testing and rebranding. Basically doing the sorting and testing and offering a warrantee--this was the GT model long ago. TAD (tube amp doctors) do it now...I do take issue with how confusing it's become with all the "names" floating around for the same tubes.