We all want to get something for nothing… or at least, for very little. Is this possible, in the confusing world of NOS tubes?
We think so. There is one kind of NOS tube that we have found to be:
- reliable
- great sounding
- affordable, and
- long-lasting.
You might think we are trying to sell you something, but actually we only have a few pairs of these. They are: CONN tubes. As we write this article, there is currently a set of four CONN 12au7 tubes on eBay for a total of 40 bucks + shipping. Are we sure that they are quiet, with lots of life still in them? Nope. Are we willing to bet $40 that at least 2 of these will make a great-sounding pair, with possibly a second good pair left over? Absolutely. (Frankly, we can’t remember ever getting a noisy Conn tube, which is kind of amazing because we have bought many of these over the years.)
That price, we admit, is especially good. We often see pairs of Conn tubes selling for $25 or $30 a pair, which is still very good in the world of NOS tubes.
What are CONN tubes? Primarily they are RCA clear tops, with reddish/orange ink (and often that ink is faded, or completely worn off).
Sometimes, they are US-made Sylvania tubes, with green ink.
These tubes say “Conn” on them because Conn was a U.S. manufacturer of organs that used tubes in the internal amplifiers, and they wanted their own company name to appear on the tubes.
Why are they so inexpensive? We believe it’s just a name brand issue. People trust “RCA” tubes more than they trust a brand they have never heard of. So they are willing to pay more for RCA tubes, and they are less willing to “gamble” on an unknown brand. Since there are many pairs of Conn 12au7 tubes in existence, the law of supply and demand takes it from there, keeping the prices low.
We tend to prefer Conn 12au7 tubes over RCA clear tops, but does that make any sense? Aren’t they just re-labeled clear tops? We don’t know. Maybe Conn had certain rules that RCA had to follow for producing their tubes, or maybe RCA selected their best tubes for Conn because it was a valued (large) customer. Or maybe it’s just random chance, that we have heard several great pairs of Conn tubes and not-quite-as-great pairs of RCA clear tops.
In either case, we have found them to sound much better than their price. Are they stunningly great? No… but some pairs have sounded really, really good, for us. There is a bit of variability, from pair to pair. So your results may vary.
But whenever a client asks us to recommend NOS tubes that won’t break the bank, and are even less costly than the best currently-produced tubes, we recommend Conn. So far, we haven’t heard any complaints.
