Polam el84s

[juggernaut]

Got a quad of polams, and I must say, they do not sound good in my amp.Are these polams particular about the amp they go in? Very flat and dry sounding.
Comments appreciated. Thanks

[allynmey]

Hi jug, I have a set of Polems. They are very voltage sensitive in my opinion. I love their sound in the right amp. I use them in my Lite IIb but, have to keep the voltage low. Around 310-320 Plate and 300-310 screen seems ok. They absolutely choke and die in my 36 watter. Admittedly my 36 is pushing real high voltage. They are the same as the Telams which are some of the best tubes I've seen.

Allynmey

[jockman]

I just got the most beautiful light show from my pair of Polams, all those lovely blue/pink/purple and red flashes, and all the lovely snap,crackle and pops reminded me of guy fawkes night. They are now in the bin, after quite a bit of trouble. BUT when they worked, they were stunning

I now have a pair of RFT's, they are good, If you don't want the Polams, I will gladly buy them from you.

[markh]

Yeah, I had one spark out too, but the sarge promptly replaced it for me.

I'm quite fond of their sound myself.

--mark

[sgtoverdrive]

ive found a tube that supasses them ,but rugged to get hands on.the brimar portsmouth production .its got british invasion all over it.ive managed to order some from england but it should be a few weeks.sgt od

[jockman]

ive found a tube that supasses them ,but rugged to get hands on.the brimar portsmouth production .its got british invasion all over it.ive managed to order some from england but it should be a few weeks.sgt od

I got a pair, as you know sarge, I found them to be noisy as hell, took them out and put the RFT's back in, silence..

[drake]

This may put the cat among the pigeons, but I´ve been living in Germany since 1979, and I experienced the whole falling of the Iron Curtain thing in 1989, and also have good knowledge of the ex-Eastern Block manufacturing code!
You see, when these companies were still operating, they had no competition, so their quality control was in most cases non-existant.
If you´ve ever seen their old cars or motorcycles, you´ll know what I mean!

I personally would never trust anything made in Eastern Block countries before 1989! Most of these companies are defunkt now anyway.

It´s good to have reputable tube suppliers, that will sift through all the bad ones, but I still would never trust an East German or Polish or Russian NOS tube, you just never know when it´s going to go south on you! Good, this can happen with any tube, but look at JJ for example:
A lot of Tube Suppliers will suggest that the NOS Teslas are superior to the present JJ´s !!! But bear in mind that Tesla was a state owned and controlled company, but is today in private ownership, and is capable of manufacturing just about anything the audio/music industry wants, and they have much better quality control now, because they´ve got a reputation to defend!
Same thing with Svetlana, Sovtek/Reflector etc.
Tubes from these Current Manufacturers are getting better every day, and it doesn´t do a tube any good, sitting around in a box for 30-40 years, put one in an amp, and it´s like a ticking time bomb!
Granted there are some very respected NOS tube suppliers, but even they can never really know what their tubes have been doing during all these years! Some have been in and out of test equipment several times, burned in several times, and have been around the world several times in packages maybe too!
So, in spite of my utmost respect for the reputable NOS suppliers out there, I´d put my money in Current Production tubes everytime; I don´t like Chinese tubes though.....

PS: I´ve spent a lot of money on NOS tubes (US and Western European manufacture) in the past, only to be disappointed on more than one occation....

drake

[sgtoverdrive]

dont give the chinese stuff a bad rap before you try em they are making a very good el 34 and i stand on that .as far as polams are concerned they were flavor of the month and i have found them to be inconsistent batch to batch.so on that note id aggree .but let me say you hit on a sore subject here .i also aggree that sitting or getting jostled about from collector to collector is pretty common.and we see alot of failure in bulk .i still dont like jjs and the old tesla stuff is far superior in all respects.and thats that.but there is some wisdom in what you say .but some of it is unfounded .i will put a shuguang el34b up against any jj including there 77 .they have a harsh effect in marshalls ive seen this.sgt od

[drake]

Hi Sarge! Thanks for your reply.
Your quite right about the Chinese tube rap, sorry!
It´s just that I had some (4 pairs) of the new Shuguang 6L6´s marketed by Tube Amp Doctor here in Germany, and they sounded great in the beginning, but after a few gigs and sessions their tone went bad, and I was pretty p****d off!

Also, a Quad of JJ EL34´s sound better (to me) in my old ´72 Orange OD120, than a quad of older Chinese EL34´s... but then again, my bass player uses that amp

Apart from that, I haven´t had any other experiences with Chinese tubes so sorry if I generalized my comment.

Anyway my old Fender Vibroclone (15"JBL) has been retired to it´s flightcase since I got my new 1974X and CX a while ago so I don´t need to search for good 6L6´s anymore; my hearing has started to recover too.... I think...

sir francis

[str82hvn]

Got a quad of polams, and I must say, they do not sound good in my amp.Are these polams particular about the amp they go in? Very flat and dry sounding.
Comments appreciated. Thanks

I'd be happy to take those "aweful tubes" and give them a loving home.

I bought 4 Polam EL84's from Sarge and they sound AWESOME!

str82hvn

[doctornorbert]

Is this a Polam polemic?

[drake]

Nope. Not at all.
Just thought it would be helpful to let people know of my own experiences.

Granted, no-one likes to hear stuff that they like, being giving a bad rap, but it seems to me that some things that were once considered crap, are being praised today as the holy grail! "Just as long as it isn´t current production..." Have you seen the prices of 70´s Fender Strat´s lately? Only a few years ago, no-one would touch the darn things with a bargpole, now they are being sold as "Vintage", and just because they´re over 30 years old, they´re fetching beaucoup bucks today! It really is a crazy world...

When someone says "this tube is good" or "that tube is bad", they are only expressing their own opinions, tastes or experiences, like I am doing. What you do, at the end of the day, is up to you. Nothing is Gospel, Holy, or written in stone.

Have a simply wicked weekend
[/quote]

[doctornorbert]

That's right, the best thing to listen to is your own ears.

[Smokin-Tone]

A quad of these just went for $192.50 on Ebay. Unbelievable.
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dl ... 9729867426

[smak]

dont look now but another quad just went up from the same seller.

i dont think its so unbelievable when you take into consideration the price gold lions and some other tubes fetch.

i also think anyone who has heard these beutiful little tubes will agree if they had the cash and knew it was the only source right now then they would pay that (and more possibly) in a heartbeat.

[zaphod_phil]

This may put the cat among the pigeons, but I´ve been living in Germany since 1979, and I experienced the whole falling of the Iron Curtain thing in 1989, and also have good knowledge of the ex-Eastern Block manufacturing code! You see, when these companies were still operating, they had no competition, so their quality control was in most cases non-existant. If you´ve ever seen their old cars or motorcycles, you´ll know what I mean!

I'm familiar with the cars - Trabant, Wartburg, Skoda, Moskvitch, Lada, etc. Not all of them are necessarily bad. I quite like communist era Volgas. They're built like tanks and are actually pretty reliable.

So back to tubes. Yes, the QA may have been almost non-existant, but that doesn't prevent a lot of them sounding very nice. Electronic devices follow the inverted bath tub curve, which means the vast majority of failures happen either when they're very new or very old. Burn/stress testing takes them through that first part of the curve before you or I get them. Watford Valves in the UK sell a lot of Teslas and RFTs, for example, that they burn test the hell out of and relabel under their won Harma brand. The ones that survive really sound fantastic, and are just as reliable as any modern made ones - so much so that even Brian May uses Watford's Teslas.

[dotfret]

My memory says that, even under communism, Poland was making deals with the decadent capitalists - FIAT had all their 126 models made there, for example. Now I may be wrong, but I think the Polam factory was a very quiet place - until Philips got involved, and provided tech input and machinery for cheaper valve production than they could do in Holland. If my memory serves me right, those Polam EL84 can trace their roots to Blackburn, Lancashire (famous for its holes).

[Bloozcat]

My memory says that, even under communism, Poland was making deals with the decadent capitalists - FIAT had all their 126 models made there, for example. Now I may be wrong, but I think the Polam factory was a very quiet place - until Philips got involved, and provided tech input and machinery for cheaper valve production than they could do in Holland. If my memory serves me right, those Polam EL84 can trace their roots to Blackburn, Lancashire (famous for its holes).

From what I've read, I have to agree here. It is my understanding that Philips not only sold the equipment to Polam, but that they also set it up at the Telam factory and trained the Polam employees. Although there may not have been a robust exchange of trade between the eastern bloc and the west, deals like this did happen.

[StarCaster]

bumping just to say the pair of Polams I have in my amp sound phenominal and have been super reliable for the last 5 years or so.
I just bought a n.o.s back-up pair for 35euros