I get you, and I have no doubt he’s an amazing guy. But as a new customer who is uneasy about making the right choice, his site is daunting. It looks like a relic from 1990. I appreciate the votes of confidence, though. If tubedepot doesn’t give me satisfactory details, I will return these tubes and reach out to Brent. If there is one thing I know is true, it’s that this hobby is not for the faint of heart. Maybe faxing Brent an order form is some kind of right of passage. lol
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Haha I totally understand your hesitation. It took me some time as well to navigate his site but no need to fax him, he responds to email pretty quickly. I just wanted to share my experience like others to add a data point to increase confidence.
I have gotten tubes from tube depot as well without any issues but not NOS.
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Yeah, I’ve bought from tubedepot before, but never NOT received any measurements or provenance details. This purchase, somewhat obviously, was higher cost, and so I expect a commensurately high level or service. While the tubes I received very well may be amazing, I’m going to need some measurements and some provenance details to back that up. Stay tuned… 
tbh that can happen regardless of the measurements they might send you and there aren’t a lot of ways to handle it other than cry a little and buy something else lol
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That’s fair. I’m just surprised at PURCHASE to not receive any objective data. If you’re not going to provide measurements and a matched set why am I paying you more than I would on ebay?
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Based on your comments, I suggest that you buy your own tube tester and calibrate your own tube tester or you’ll not be happy with vintage tubes. I avoid saying “new old stock” because it’s often impossible to say if they are actually new, or slightly used, or heavily used but merely test as new.
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Nice purchase! I really like Rca Springtops a lot. I’m sure these are similar to an extent. Very warm and fun sounding. Have fun!
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Bunch of free eFax services. Just type your word Doc, add a digitized sig if you want, and send to eFAX.
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I’ve always had a good experience with Brent. Answers my questions, helped with a buzzing rectifier I purchased and accepted a return with no issues, offers solid advice, etc. definitely recommend.
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To be fair, plenty of very good tube vendors don’t send measurements. I’ve bought tubes from many different vendors, and I think maybe received measurements once. I think you have to do your own homework / talk to people you trust on who they trust, and then go with that.
A lot of the tube sites are hot garbage. Many of these businesses are run by older guys who are not - um - tech savvy. At the end of the day, you have to decide whether or not you trust or want to deal with the people behind the site. Here are a few sites that look not much better than Geocities that I would definitely buy tubes from:
https://vintagetubeservices.com/
http://tubesusa.com/home.html
Andy, at Vintage Tube Services, for example, is a treasure. His site sucks, I’m pretty sure he runs his business on paper, you may have to call 5 times to catch him, and he may or may not ship your tubes in a moderately timely manner, but he’s insanely knowledgeable, doesn’t push you toward expensive stuff (if anything, he does the opposite), has great inventory, prices fairly, and will personally run a ton of tests on tubes for you (and not send measurements, by the way).
You can’t know that with measurements and provenance, either. Tubes can test really strong well past the mid-point of their lives, and brand new (NOS or new production) tubes can fail randomly. Having some warranty is nice, and some sellers offer it, but I generally suggest getting into tubes with the knowledge that they’re a risk.
All in all, selling vintage electron bulbs from 4-7 decades ago is a very rare art and skill in that you must know what is good, where to find it, and how to test it - and you’re doing this for an itsy bitsy market. Your ven diagram starts getting mighty tiny when you start asking for tech savvy and a nice website, which means you’ll lose out on some awesome vendors if you start expecting too much.
Believe me, I’m with you that it can be frustrating, but tubes take some patience, forgiveness, and ultimately, risk.
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Maybe I’ve just been lucky in the past. I’ve ordered a few NOS tubes for my schiit amps and a rectifier for Stellaris and all of them came with measurements. And yes, I realize we can’t know the future in any case, but measurements at least help me feel more confident that I’m actually getting NOS and not just an old tube someone pulled out of some old amp and put in a box. Though perhaps I’m fooling myself if I think someone that would do that wouldn’t also make up nice measurements to go with the tube. lol
Anyway, these RCAs sound fantastic. 
I think what a few of us are trying to convey is that the measurements don’t tell you this. Any solid tube is going to test strong well into its life. A 50% old tube doesn’t test at 50% of its original measurements; it will probably measure nearly as well as it did on day 1. Maybe a hair down, but not down enough that you could tell vs natural variation between tubes. All the measurement can really do is (1) tell you it’s not complete garbage, and (2) help you match it with another tube. Otherwise, its on your trust of the vendor, and the vendor’s trust of their source as to whether the tube is true NOS, lightly used, or used for X hours.
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If the tubes sound good, and there isn’t a channel imbalance, I’d say just stick with them. I haven’t heard any negative feedback about TubeDepot myself, so I don’t think you’re doing any worse there than you would elsewhere.
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These came today. Initial impressions are positive. I’m sure they’ll improve with time.
Less EMI than the stock Full Music tubes (maybe lol 
).
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I forgot to take a picture of the box, but my Elrog 5U4G arrived. Less “tube glow” and more like an additional lightbulb in my living room. lol
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Awesome, beautiful!
Want to hear what you think after some burn in 
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But does it sound better? 
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TBD. I’m getting some strange electrical interference that I think may be due to a faulty RCA 5U4G, so I swapped in the Elrog sooner than intended as part of troubleshooting. So far so good, but taking a few days to see what happens AND to allow some burn in time before I even contemplate what I think about the Elrog.
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I gotta say this is very impressive, especially for variety sake. The riffle rack with the cut out foam really is a terrific idea. As nutty as some may think it is I think it is completely normal and a smart way to go. After all, you do have a FolkVangr. Lol.
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