Description
Each order is for One Pair (Two Tubes) of current matched power tubes for the OTL Headphone Power Amplifier Kit. Each tube has been tested at the correct operating point and listened to “live” in order to ensure low noise, low microphonics, and great sound.
The 6AS7 / 6080 / 6N13S are dual power triodes that were originally designed to be used in regulated power supplies but have found use in modern HI-FI as OTL (Output Transformerless) power tubes in headphone amplifiers like ours. The main difference between the tubes is that the 6080 and its variants were designed with a shorter straight glass bottle and wide metal base. It’s considered to be an industrial/ruggedized version of the 6AS7 that typically come in an ST (Shoulder Type, often called “Coke Bottles”) glass bottle with a standard Octal base.
Many of these tubes were supplied for military service, and so the naming conventions can be a bit mixed up depending on what the military contract called for. So you’ll often see 6080 tubes marked as being 6AS7. You will also often see different characters after the “6080” and “6AS7” numbers such as WA, WB, WC, GA, GB, GC. In theory these were supposed to denote a specific version of the tube that was hardened against vibration and microphonics, but just as you see 6080 tubes marked as 6AS7’s, you will also see these numbers used interchangeable even across otherwise identical tubes.
Note: vintage tubes were often rebranded under many different names. When matching tubes, we first match by type/construction and then we always focus on the testing numbers. After that, we match for brand whenever possible. Original boxes for NOS (New Old Stock) tubes will be sent when available. Otherwise we will ship in a high quality generic box.
