Uh-Oh! Just bought a used pair of Elrog 845s!



Stuff is about to get real.

Aber ja!

Wow, nice catch there - James!

Does using an STR impact the Decware warranty?

FWIW the wording of the warranty is:

Quote:


So the way I read it is if your amp fails because something goes wrong with your STR you aren't covered, just as you wouldn't be covered if something goes wrong with your conventional rectifier, or other tubes. If you are using the STR and the amp fails for an unrelated reason then you are covered. But, as a practical matter it is hard for me to imagine a rectifier related failure, STR or conventional, that does anything more than blow a fuse, or two. But JMO/FWIW and all that. I’m not using mine in a Decware amp.

The Elrogs have landed!



The tubes are several years old, so well broken in but have been in the box for months. They've been playing for about 30 minutes and are clearly better than the Chinese tubes: bigger, more detailed sound and even more dynamics and rock solid bass. At some point I may adjust the other tubes, but for sure the best sound yet. I would probably be less happy if I payed full retail for new tubes, but these were reasonable compared to e.g. TOTL Chinese 10V triodes.

I am glad my STR doesn’t take those tubes.  They better sound better than the Chinese choices at $2400 pr new..yikes! 🤯 Enjoy them👍

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Not sure where you got that, but more like $1600. Which is still a lot, but same ballpark as TOTL 300B tubes.

Yeah, and/or an old webpage. Now you buy them directly from Elrog.

Kamran, I feel like this is some of the best audio money I've ever spent. It is significant money, but it is considerably less than I spent to upgrade my digital front end after I got my UFOs (because the old one wasn't good enough), or to upgrade from UFOs to UFO25s and the results are at least as dramatic as either of those upgrades.

Hope that helps .

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Ouch, that really hits me where I live.

OK, let me start with this. I was the guy who infamously said as my STR was in the mail that my system sounded so good already I wasn't sure it could improve it. But clearly it did.

AL says the STR can improve the sound 50-200%. I'll say the best sound I was getting +STR was 75% better than the best pre-STR or 125% better than per-STR without the perfect conventional rectifier. In other words, replacing the "perfect" conventional rectifier with the STR was a bigger improvement than finding the perfect conventional rectifier. You can compare that to your experience rolling rectifiers, but note that this is in a Woo Audio WA22.

Adding the Elrogs was a more subtle change, but concentrated the magic, so the improvement was smaller but important. +STR to STR+Elrog was another 50%.

For comparison I would say going from UFOs to UFO25s was a 33-50% increase.

Hope this helps

Slippery slope indeed. I first learned about them when I was shopping for 300B tubes. A lot of folks, who have more 300B tubes than I have socks, say Elrog runs up the score on WE and Takatsuki. For me personally the Elrog sound profile didn't fit what I was looking for so I went with Tak and had no regrets. But the 845s certainly have the "Elrog house sound" which is big, detailed and dynamic with liquidity more than warmth.

AAAAND I just ordered a pair of 845s from Elrog. Should be here in two weeks or so.

I talked with Steve today, and in general, his answer to the question of "STR impact on the Decware warranty," was very close to what James opined:

"... if your amp fails because something goes wrong with your STR you aren't covered, just as you wouldn't be covered if something goes wrong with your conventional rectifier, or other tubes. If you are using the STR and the amp fails for an unrelated reason, then you are covered."

Steve said the situation would not be binary; the issue was more gray than black or white, and he would handle each case individually. He added that he felt sure he could determine fault—STR or something else through investigation.

Tony- Many Thanks! For asking Steve regarding the warranty using a STR.  

Well guys had my first Mercury vapor tube failure.  One of my RCA 866A tubes upon turning on the amp power switch had a bright flash, tripped my power conditioner off and blew a low value fuse on my ground zero at the wall plug.  No component fuses blew or the SDFB did not trip.  The tube itself had black covering the silver canister plate and when I went to remove it from the STR (from the base) the glass separated from the base completely exposing the vapor it appears.  Ughhh…held my breath, opened all windows, left the room vacant,  sealed tube in plastic bag to dispose of.  Obviously you want to avoid these occurrences but single one off low dose exposures are low risk and still need to be avoided.  Repeated regular exposure is the major risk to health.  Is it time to wear a respirator upon powering up?  🤞😷

Well, that's concerning. A good lesson to the rest of us to handle any apparently-blown MV tubes with care on removal.

Thousands (millions?) of MV tubes lasted for years in continuous use and I haven't seen a lot of stories of radio engineers, etc., dying young from mercury poisoning. Plus, I dropped a mercury thermometer when I was a kid and definitely played with the fun silver balls for longer than I should have. I dunno.

It occurs to me that the cautious among us might apply electrical tape along the seal between the tube and base, as an extra safeguard. I love the MV, maybe too much, but I also want it to be as safe as possible. Just spitballing here.

Not sure if it was a seal failure or an internal tube failure that caused the seal failure. 🤔  80 year old adhesives under high heat a challenge …I  am thinking check bases frequently, re-glue base to hold and hopefully keep a tight seal.  I don’t think tape will handle the heat or keep a seal. I have glued several other tube types with success as bases were discovered loose

I am with you on good glue.

But also, old adages that minimize/rationalize exposure to truly toxic things are suspect to me, especially in this day and time when toxicity is more and more all around us, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

Thinking of those old stories of people living long lives in certain special places on earth while drinking a daily vodka and smoking a little at a hundred... you know the stories. Well counter those with auto-immune diseases being epidemic, and various versions of "the spectrum" more and more widespread in kids, not by a little, but by a lot.

My wife was one of the healthiest seeming and living people any of our friends and family knew. She had eaten extraordinarily healthfully since the early 70s, from the early eighties on, mostly organic food and clean water; carefully avoided toxic places and things; ran, or later walked most days since the early 70s; lived in wild nature and very clean environments without many petrochemical things like foam, plastic fabrics, insulation, rugs, etc most of her life... meditated most days for the last 40 years, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, excellent body balancing care from others... did creative work she loved, and more...

In about a year she went from that person everyone thought would outlive us all, to passing from her body at a little less than 74.

My main thought being... there probably was a time where many of us could stand up to a little toxicity now and then. But in this world now, it is coming from so many angles, we never know when our immune system will become overwhelmed, hyper reactive and lose it. Not trying to be a buzz kill, but implying being thoughtful and careful is becoming more and more important to me.

Something to consider anyway.

So sorry, I know that is rough. My wife was my best friend and we lived and worked together for almost 45 years... lots to lose. I hope you are recovering well... pretty crazy stuff. I tried a lot of different glues over years, mostly epoxy and super glues, and they did not tend to hold up, though some might. Thinking of gorilla epoxy, maybe, but epoxy may be in general too brittle for the hot and cold/expansion and contraction of different materials we are trying to glue together with tubes. Weldbond holds well so far for me... I think I got onto it from Steve, but can't recall for sure.