Elrog Tubes

Mike

Mike

Audioshark
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Would love to hear from those who have had experience with Elrog tubes.

I'm considering the 300b's for my Lampizator and possibly the 211's for my, well, 211 amp.

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Home - elrog.com
 
I was interested in the Elrog 845 but reliability issues put me off.Make sure you buy from a dealer who is happy to replace during the warranty period.My dealer had trouble getting reply from Elrog themselves.Apart from thats sound wise I am told they are great!
Stump
 
stump said:
I was interested in the Elrog 845 but reliability issues put me off.Make sure you buy from a dealer who is happy to replace during the warranty period.My dealer had trouble getting reply from Elrog themselves.Apart from thats sound wise I am told they are great!
Stump
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For the Dac, there will be very little strain of the tubes, so not sure if the 300bs will have any worries there. For the amp, that will be something else,as they will be stresssed and reliability issues if any will be more of a worry there.
 
I have the Elrog 845 tubes and they are the best sounding I ever heard. The reliability problem is suppose to be fixed since a year ago.
 
Joe got to hear a pair of Elrog 300b's yesterday...hmmm....Joe? Thoughts?
 
Mike said:
Joe got to hear a pair of Elrog 300b's yesterday...hmmm....Joe? Thoughts?
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Hi Mike :heart:

Amazing. DEFINITELY better than any 300b that I've heard. I absolutely loved them. I hope I can find Elrog 211's for my new Lampi amps.
 
Mike, Everyone I've spoken with has talked about Elrog's reliability issues. One person I spoke with had one of his two 845 tubes die within 6 months. Even Lukasz when he made his presentation at the shop almost a couple years back now, told me about Elrog's reliability issues when I mentioned considering trying some in my amp (a Mastersound Reference 845 that uses a quad of 845 tubes) There are so many great 845 tubes being made today such as the new Psvane A845 at $1050/pr. the Canada Fuller 845GX that cost $940.33 a piece, KR Audio makes the 845 HP for $1895/pr, TJ Fullmusic makes the 845SL $899/pr Elrog and so on. When spending these types of prices on a pair of tubes, I believe reliability shouldn't be an issue we'd have consider...


I'm listening to Listen by Rachel Flowers

Thetubeguy1954 (Tom)

Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society -- Full-range/Wide-range Drivers -- High Sensitivity Speakers
============================================================================
 
I would add to this that it would be fair to say that Elrog today is not the Elrog from the past (few years ago) as today Elrog is owned by Thomas Mayer and the tube issues are the thing of the past. And this comes from the owner of old 300b pair where one tube went dead out of the blue...
Overall no need to worry about the quality of Elrog today as they are on par with rest of the top tier tube producers - and they look fantastic :D
 
Golum said:
I would add to this that it would be fair to say that Elrog today is not the Elrog from the past (few years ago) as today Elrog is owned by Thomas Mayer and the tube issues are the thing of the past. And this comes from the owner of old 300b pair where one tube went dead out of the blue...
Overall no need to worry about the quality of Elrog today as they are on par with rest of the top tier tube producers - and they look fantastic :D
Click to expand...


Golum thanks you for that update about the Elrog tubes! But might I ask when this change with Elrog tubes occurred? I ask this because I saw Elrog tubes in one of the Lampizator pieces when Lukasz visited and when I expressed interest in trying the Elrog tubes in my Mastersound amp. Lukasz was concerned enough about their reliability at that time to caution me about about using them and that was a little less than 2 years ago. So I assume this change is a fairly recent (within 2 years) event that certainly would make Elrog ER845 tubes one I'd consider for my next 845 tube exchange. Again, thanks for the input...


I'm listening to Foreward by The Hazelrigg - Leonard Group

Thetubeguy1954 (Tom)

Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society -- Full-range/Wide-range Drivers -- Front & Back-Loaded Horns

=============================================================================================================

YBA Genesis CD4, Transport/CD Player w/Snake River Audio Cottonmouth power cord.
Snake River Boomslang digital wire.
Musical Paradise MP-D2, Tubed DAC w/Sablon Gran Corona power cord.
Teo Ultra GC ICs (liquid metal interconnects)
Mastersound Reference 845, Integrated SET amp w/Hi-Diamond 3 power cord.
Snake River Audio Cottonmouth Signature speaker wires.
Beauhorn Virtuoso Front & Back-loaded Horns w/Lowther PM5A drivers.
 
Hi!
Sorry for a bit late reply. As you said overtake from Thomas happened within last two years maybe less. Lukasz was at my place few months ago and we tried out a set of latest production of Elrog 300b and they sounded sublime and oh boy they are the lookers as well. I would say the same is valid for the ones you are looking into (845). But please do check with Thomas directly as he is quite/very responsive on the emails.

Cheers
 
[h=5]vinylsavor[/h]10 posts


12-25-2016 3:52am



Hi All,

my name is Thomas Mayer and I am the founder and owner of Deutsche Elektronenröhren Manufaktur GmbH, which produces the Elrog tubes now. I’d like to share some more insight into the situation. Before I bought the machines of Elrog and started to produce tubes I was a distributor of Elrog tubes and I used them in amps I sell. I went through the same pain as other distributors with the failure of the 300Bs during the first year. Like George Lenz I made sure that each customer who experienced failed tubes either got replacements or his money back.

The company is under my sole management and I handle all customer interaction. You can rest assured that we will honour all warranty claims. In fact we are giving warranty on tubes produced by the old company as long as they are still in their original warranty period. Also be sure that if similar problems pop up again, there will be no denial.

I fully understand the reservations some of you have against Elrgo tubes after all you went through. It will take time until the reputation will return and I understand that people want to see others use the tubes for some significant time without reports of problems. We are prepared to go through this period. In fact the sales of the newly produced tubes has been quite good and we had trouble to keep up with the demand.

About the issues of the tubes. As has been reported, the tubes underwent numerous changes during last year. The most significant one was introduced in January this year, which involved a strengthening of the filaments. 95% of the failures were breaking of one or several of the filament segments. The filaments were very sensitive to overheating and especially inrush current at amplifier turn on.

The filament had been strengthened in January which was well before I bought the assets of the company. I am happy to report that I did not receive a single returned 300B tube which has that change. Also since the tubes are produced under the new company we did not experience a single 300b fault. In the new company we introduced several more changes, like different bases, better, more uniformly shaped glass and improved vacuum. Also much more improved quality control. Although the failure rate of the 300B is 0 so far of course it is unrealistic to expect absolutely 0 returns. A technical device can fail and at some point we will also see some failed 300b. But the experience so far indicates that the percentage will be very low and of course every fail will be handled under warranty. We continue the policy that every customer who experiences a fail has the choice of getting new tubes (with new warranty) or money back.

To show the confidence in the new tubes we extended the warranty from the previous 6 month to 1 year. Warranty will be handled graciously and we will not be fussy about tubes which fail shortly after the warranty expired.

Some more info about the problems of the 2015 tubes: There had been amps in which the failure rate was 100% and amps in which the failure rate even of the early tubes was negligible. For example I have customers who use amps built by me and are still running Elrog 300bs produced in March 2015. The amp with the highest failure rate was the Frankenstein. Before releasing the tubes for the Frank I asked a beta tester to use the tubes in his Frank. This test has been going on for almost 6 month now and the tubes are going strong. Of course a longer time is needed to have statistical relevant data. But we are willing to supply tubes for Franks again and would be thankful for early customers to provide feedback. We are also supplying Lampizator DACs with tubes and they are running fine. No problems whatsoever reported from Lampizator users so far. We do have a list of certain amps which we do not recommend to use with Elrog tubes, but these are known to eat other 300B brands as well. When inquiring for Elrog tubes mentioned your amp and we will tell you if it is on the black list. This black list is very very short and wr do not want to mention the manufacturer publicly.

I was in close contact with George Lenz before I started the new company and he was the first distributor on bard after restart of production. George continues to be the exclusive distributor for Elrog tubes in the US and Canada. I am happy to have such an experienced and customer oriented in George to take care of this area.

I hope this gives some more insight. Don’t hesitate to email me or George if you have further questions

Best regards

Thomas
 
Golum said:
Hi!
Sorry for a bit late reply. As you said overtake from Thomas happened within last two years maybe less. Lukasz was at my place few months ago and we tried out a set of latest production of Elrog 300b and they sounded sublime and oh boy they are the lookers as well. I would say the same is valid for the ones you are looking into (845). But please do check with Thomas directly as he is quite/very responsive on the emails.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Golum, your response is hardly what I'd call being late, but thanks for the concern. I deeply appreciate your setting the record straight for me concerning the Elrog tubes. I'll have to look into their new 845 tubes as I'll most likely be replacing the quad of 845 tubes in my Mastersound this year!


I'm listening to Foreward by The Hazelrigg - Leonard Group


Thetubeguy1954 (Tom)

Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society -- Full-range/Wide-range Drivers -- Front & Back-Loaded Horns

=============================================================================================================


YBA Genesis CD4, Transport/CD Player w/Snake River Audio Cottonmouth power cord.
Snake River Boomslang digital wire.
Musical Paradise MP-D2, Tubed DAC w/Sablon Gran Corona power cord.
Teo Ultra GC ICs (liquid metal interconnects)
Mastersound Reference 845, Integrated SET amp w/Hi-Diamond 3 power cord.
Snake River Audio Cottonmouth Signature speaker wires.
Beauhorn Virtuoso Front & Back-loaded Horns w/Lowther PM5A drivers.
 
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