Alese Vaic Vacuum Technology
What you see here are AVVT NOS tubes, which I purchased when I was their main distributor, from 1998 to 2001.
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What started off, so promising, turned out to be difficult for all parties involved. Mr. Vaic knew so much about how to make tubes, and his ideas had no boundaries. In fact, with respect to that, he was one of the most incredible persons I have ever known. For him, nothing was impossible. He just needed someone to say what can not be done, and these persons were his wife and me. His wife was the production manager, and he was the business manager. I sometimes whished they swapped positions, but on the other hand, his wife could be quite dominant. So I never brought up this idea. Either way, the situation was not ideal.
Attention: Tubes ending on 'M' are mesh plate tubes.
AVVT TUBE |
Stock situation: |
Replace by EML Tube: |
Sorry,. The legendary AVVT 300B is SOLD OUT BUT.... we do have a few re-build tubes. Please check under tubes from the jacmusic menu, and then under special sales, or click here. |
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Sorry... Sold out for ever |
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Sorry,. The legendary AVVT 32B is SOLD OUT BUT.... we do have a few re-build tubes. Please check under tubes from the jacmusic menu, and then under special sales, or click here. |
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Sorry... Sold out for ever |
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If someone makes a 200 pcs order. |
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like Marconi_R etc. |
Time line of AVVT
1997 and older. Tubes from the older 'VAIC-VALVE' brand are good quality.
In 1998, Audio Note was the sole distributer of AVVT tubes, and these were Audio Note branded, with a large golden "AN" logo on the tubes. This cooperation was ended on the initiative of Audio Note. In case you want to know about reliability of such tubes, before purchasing them, I recommend you to contact Audio Note about this directly.
Tubes from before 1999 can be good, as long as they are not private branded. So they must be branded 'AVVT' and nothing else.
1999-2001. They really made some good stuff. I kept track of the reliability of all tubes I sold, be registering the series numbers. From this I can conclude, that the AVVT tubes from 1999-2001 were generally of very good quality. For me, these are the only years from which you can buy them without risk. Specially in 2000 and 2001, tubes were made of almost near-perfect quality with respect to reliability and lifetime. I was always carefully monitoring the quality. I don't have any of those anymore, apart from some AV5B and AV8B, but provided such tubes test strong, that is probably what they are.
All AVVT tubes from 2002 or later, are made in the period close before AVVT got bankrupt. Do not buy those.
Also we need to warn you for particular Ebay sellers. There is somebody who got hold of a collection REJECTED tubes. Rejected by myself after Alesa Vaic send them to me. He admitted they were bad. Then we localized the series numbers, and called back distributer stock. After I had the whole batch here, it was agreed for AVVT to destroy them. It is unbelievable, I saw those in Ebay, beginning 2016. So for sure we can say, somebody has those, and the seller is obviously very patient, and waits for a good moment to sell them. After this warning was issued, that person evaporated on Ebay, but as said, it is a very patient person. Here is a link to the old series number list. Mind you also, this list is very incomplete. Also, this person can now read on that list too. So there is pro and contra, with publishing those series numbers, but that's how it is.
Click here for a test report on the AV300B by Enjoythemusic.com |
Click here for a tweak report on a pair of Bottle head parafeed 2A3 amps by Enjoythemusic.com |
More information about rejected AVVT tubes
Note about storage of AVVT tubes: It seems the storage time of those tubes is minimum 10years, and after that period, all they need is a short warm-up and you can store them for another period. (we write this in the year 2010). It seems at this moment you need to pay no special attention to all AVVT branded tubes. Just plug them in, and that's it.
The VAIC-VALVE tubes that are 10...15 old now, may be going to need a (professional) burn-in before first use. (Such a burn-in you cannot do yourself). After this burn-in they are ready for another such storage period.
Does that mean older tubes are bad? No! But... you need to take care of the following:
If the tubes were stored longer, like 10 years or more, they might need to wake up in a controlled way. This is normal, and you should not be disappointed if such tubes do not test very strong, right out of the (NOS) box. If they test at 70% or more DC current (the most important test for any tube) you can use the following procedure, to improve them.
If lower than 70% they most probably can be brought back to life by an experienced person, provided the tubes are really NOS, and you have not been fooled with used tubes put back in the original boxes.
If a NOS tube is initially (at a very short test) at or above 70% DC current, here is the way to go:
THIS PROCEDURE IS DONE ON ALL AVVT TUBES WE SELL
- Run the tube with filament heaters only, for 30 minutes.
- Set up the tube for maximum power conditions, and then check if the tube draws 100% of the plate current it is supposed to draw at those conditions.
- If below 70%, stop here. (see note at the end of the text)
- If above 70%, observe if plate current tends to go up or down. If it tends to go below 70%, stop here. (see note at the end of the text)
- If it goes up, let it run for 30 minutes, and observe if the plate current will not go above 100%. If that happens, stop here. (see note at the end of the text)
- After 30 minutes, reduce the grid voltage such that you have 50% of maximum plate power.
- Run the tube for two hours in this condition.
- Now test it for transconductance, and DC current. When around 85% the tube is ok, and can now be put into an amplifier. Re-Test the tube after 50...100 hours, and it must be at 100% plate current.
- When the tube is at 100% right away, it needs no further treatment. (so the end user can do the burn-in of 50...100 hours in the amplifier himself)
All AVVT NOS tubes I had so far, passed he above procedure perfectly. Most VAIC-VALVE also, but some needed a more professional wake-up procedure, and then were very strong again.
The above process is a very good idea for any NOS tube that has been sleeping very long. Then they can be safely stored again for another period. In case a tube was stored longer than 10 years, you may find the transconductance is 30% reduced or more. So you must verify the original old DC test data, if available. If DC test data got lost or never existed, you have to work with transconductance data, but that is not as good as working with DC current data. In case you observe lower DC current, you will also have lower transconductance, but how much lower nobody can tell.
Remember, this is only the case when the tubes were stored from the beginning, and never used ever since. This is nothing unusual, and it is almost normal with NOS tubes, like 6SN7. I bought a NOS pair WE-205D, that was only testing "fair". After re-burn in, they were exactly like on the datasheet again. When the tubes are used every now and then, they will just stay in good condition much longer than NOS tubes. It can all be explained, but that is beyond the scope of this page trying to do this. So here comes my old saying again, that good "used" tubes can be better condition than random NOS tubes that have been stored for 60 years, and never used ever since. I also had NOS 227 tubes from RCA that could not be brought back to above 60%. These had been sleeping for 80 years, and they would have been fine of somebody just switched them on three or four times during that 80 years. However, it was not done, and they were lost. This was such a shame. The first time I opened the boxes, the boxes fell apart in small pieces, so the tubes were really never taken out. The tubes came out looking so nice, but test values were very weak, and I could not repair them.
IF THE PROCEDURE WILL NOT WORK. There are no general rules what to do now. It requires experience with the particular tube type, and understanding of the processes inside the tube, and these are many, and not the easiest to understand. If you have a 'transconductance only' type of tester, you cannot say very much about the tube condition, unless transconductance is very strong. When this has happens, do not use the tube, or your attempts may make things worse, or damage the tube permanently. Such a tube can be brought back into good condition, when you have the equipment for it. You can send it, and we can do that for you. So far, this seemed only necessary with the Vaic-Valve 52B's from around 1996, but it will probably also be necessary with other tubes when the years pass by, and older NOS tubes are found.
Replacements: EML grew on the old roots of AVVT. There is probably nothing that remained unchanged, and lifetime and quality of EML is definitely at a very much higher level. In any case, we deliver replacements for most AVVT tubes, and when we have time and resources, we can repair AVVT tubes of the type 32B and 300B.
EBAY: I have never seen other AVVT tubes there, as NOS, or hardly used. It is always the same. So where have those tubes all gone, with 2000, 4000, 6000, etc hours on them? Somebody must have used them. Were all AVVT tubes only stored by their owners? Do you really believe that all people ever since, bought those only with the intention to store them, just to put then on Ebay 25 years later, and now YOU are the lucky guy finding those? Do you really believe so? Then you can find good deals on Ebay like 1800 Euro for a NOS pair of AVVT 300B, like sometimes every week.