Hello Steve.
 SM> Alittle over a year ago I bought a nice, new 'entry' level
 SM> stereo amp using 6 Sovtek 5881s.  Listed as 40watts per
 SM> channel, everyone says 25-30 is more like it.  Anyhow,
 SM> zero-feedback, singled-ended, and I love it.  I consider
 SM> it the biggest feature of my system.
 SM> It also had Sovtek 6SN7s, but everone upgrades those.  I
 SM> currently have the more desireable RCA 5692 red-bases...
 SM> So are tubes very popular over there?  I know they still
 SM> are one of the main suppliers, and have alot better build
 SM> quality than the Chinese tubes...
   Where is your amp  produced?
   AFAIK there are Russin companies in St-Petersburg (former Leningrad),
which are producing tube amps of audiophile quality.
   Biggest producers of tubes are also located in St-Peter. They make
tubes with new names, but those are plain old Soviet tubes. IMHO their 
uality
is higher than Chinese. BTW many enterprises in former USSR are still 
producing
a lot of tubes. We have considerable amount of TV's on tubes yet.
It is not a joke!
   Living here it is quite practical to have tube amp, especially if You
can buy ready tube amp from factory and then improve it.
   Now I'm considering buying of tube amp 50 watts and then improve it
to 27 or 12 watts.
Gregory
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