Don't support Western Electric: shameless warranty runarounds

Yeah that's legit of him. The real potential for abuse here is with people reselling these things without mentioning their origin/status. Seems shitty of Rossville to not get more involved with communicating about the release of these B stock lots, if only to help prevent this kind of thing from happening.

 

While I wouldn't pay the "A" stock price, the B stock as sold by TD are not much more expensive than the lower end offerings. It's probably worth a try to see if these are good enough for the fraction of the cost.

Does anybody know if the Studio B need any adjustment on the bias, and if so how does one go about it?

 

I mean, there is no bias knob or pot that i know of on the amp. I just dont know how out of spec it would self bias to.

 

I could be tempted, too. Is the big downside of these out-of-spec tubes that, in a self-biasing amp, they'll provide less power than usual? With a headphone amp driving sensitive HP, that's maybe not a huge issue?

 

Seems like a good question for @atomicbob

 

Each to their own, but i would say if youre asking those questions I wouldnt chance it unless you have the amp builder or a tech that knows the circuit wrote off on it being ok. And to be clear, i do not know or pretend to know either.

I could see these being great for someone in DIY wanting to build a 300b amp for a reasonable price.

 

My AES (Cary) 300B speaker amp can adjust bias, so that might work better in this case. Hmm.

 

And to think all of this could have been avoided with some kind of imprint, stamp, or marking on the tube base. Or some kind of ink at the very least. ex a B and down arrow or B and up arrow for low / high, etc. Probably wouldn't have cost much time or effort to do this either...

 

Print on glass would be removed.

The 'B' brand on the base is good as far as it goes and better than I expected. If people know enough to ask. And Im sure the info will get out there quickly.

At the price they're offering matched sets and quads these are probably a bargain though. I have two pairs of 300B PSET monoblocks to feed, I may buy them and consider them disposables.

 

I would not trust using the WE out-of-spec tubes in amplifiers designed for in-spec 300B tubes. There is a reason engineers have design specifications. Marketing out-of-spec tubes as B-stock is a bad idea in my mind. Proceed at your own risk.

 

Western Electric: I guess they aren't selling any locomotives these days. Who, in their right mind would buy!