by pigdog » Thu Dec 08, 2005 6:20 pm
i have encountered current production EL34 in mullard boxes, which are actually SED, however these are not fakes as the manufacturere has the liscence and items were declared accurately as made in russia and priced cheaply. on the other hand i have been swindled with fake mullards ecc83 and ecc82 from a very well known hong kong dealer which i would rather not mention in public, however should you guys be buying from hong kong, let me know in advance and i will discreetly reveal the culprit. the fact is everyone in the industry knew that this dealer has been naughty and selling chinese made preamp valves dressed up as amperex or mullards. this occured years ago when i am still a newbie in the game and coudn't tell the difference between the chinese ones from the european one. the same seller is actively selling in ebay and has 100% favorable feedback, also going to thier store looking at some el84's they refused to let me look at the tubes in detail, tubes were kept behind a locked glass cabinet. nonetheless my sources in the uk are more straightforward, they will declare the items as NOS or Pulls and priced accordingly. sometimes i would buy older but still usable tubes for testing purposes or for trying out audio gears suspect audio gears as it is better to use older ones in case of any problems before sqwitiching to the valuable NOS.-pigdog/ctr