Whats a good tube tester?
 

Anyone know what a good tube tester that would work with most stereo tubes and TV tubes through the 60s.
I'm not looking for anything to test any early or exotic tubes just normal stuff i don't really know where to start...

I have used a B&K dynajet 606 for about 1.5 decades now, and have found it to be fairly reliable. They will do almost all octal and newer types.

Some have mocked it and suggested I buy a some fancy overpriced Hickok mutual conductance model, but I've never seen any advantage to doing so.

If you don't care about testing any of the Pre-Octal types, a B&K 747 is a really nice unit, but getting a bit expensive.

The Eico 667, while not a true transconductance tester, is pretty good, with decent availability of tube settings online.

I have my B&K Dyna-Jet 707 for about 48 years. It's a little beat now, from carrying it in the trunk of my car, when still doing TV repair work. I also have a Tripplett mutual conductance job, that even tests some crazy looking transmitting tubes. Too much work with the setup.
The B&K is not just a simple emissions tester like a Heathkit or Eico. It's considerly better than that. :thmbsp:

I like the B&K Dynajet series tube testers for later era TV and audio tubes. The 606 is what I normally use for that job. And as pointed out, reliable and better than the simple emissions testers so a very useful shop instrument.

Any mutual conductance type, as emission is ... well emission. Check eBay lots of them that "Grandpa used to use this old tester thingy and plugged bulbs in to" (not my words). I would not waste time on a straight emission type, a combo is good though... As far as what ones do what, Google is your friend... I myself have a TV-7A, Not the D, but works well enough and a Sencore 140 that I have added test data myself to.

I have an RCA Card-O-Matic, that is supposed to designed after the Hickok offerings. The bad thing is, is that I only have a limited amount of cards for it.
I know it only checks a limited number of tubes, because it only has an octal, locktal and 7&9 pin miniture sockets. It still would be great to have the rest of the cards for it. :scratch2:

I have always liked Hickok products, but they tend to be expensive. Although I have one here in the classifieds that nobody is hitting on. Probably because it is old enough to not be able to test more modern tubes with a compactron type pin configuration. My 6000
A Hickok will do any of them as it is newer, but not for sale unless a crazy price comes into play.

I recently found a B&K 747 in mint condition. It's my first solid state tester. So far it seems to do the job although it seems to have a million settings for each tube. Probably no more than others, just all lined up in side by side levers. Nice light weight unit and tough case more like a gun case than a piece of test equipment.

I have owned for more than thirty years an AVO Mark IV Transconductance Tester. It has always worked reliably and has been the best tester I have seen to accurately determine if the tube is good. No tester is perfect. But the AVO Mark IV is the closest I have found.

You must remember to differentiate between a simple emission checker and a unit which measures transconductance. Very often you will find adequate emission but the tube will not amplify!

The AVO Mark IV is accurately calibrated to display not only whether the tube is bad but also displays the transconductance which can compare with the manufacturers data.

The AVO Mark IV is British and they were exported to North America. I bought mine for 30 Pounds. I found this on on Ebay for somewhat more:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AVO-MARK-I...item20f2c163d5

I have a B&K 747B and it seems to do very well.. I think this is one of the best testers seeing how they go anywhere between $250 - $400 on eBay.. I happened to luck out on mine as I found a mint one on eBay that didn't go real high on bids.. I think I paid around $260...

I too like my 747B. It's the only solid state tester I have ever owned. I guess I stole mine for $20 from a guy who didn't think that anyone had or messed with tubes, so it was useless. He was happy to get rid of it. I was happy when I got it home and could verify that it actually worked.

The sockets are so tight I venture to say that it was never used. Not a scratch on it.

Eico 667

I've never seen one that did both the early 4-pin / 5-pin tubes and later stuff like compactrons and nuvistors. I have a Sylvania 220 for the early tubes, and a Sencore TC28 for the later tubes.

I'll second this, although the 666 works just fine with an adapter that adds all the newer sockets the 667 has. (Settings are the same between units.)

I only endorsed the 667, well, because I have one... it's also got a nifty transistor tester you can use to match Hfe for audio amps. I have used it to match small signal complementary pairs of PNP and NPN transistors for complementary symmetry audio amps to good effect.

I also have a TV7 for the old stuff, which was always my go-to tester until I got into fixing colour televisions.

I have no idea the dollar value of either, I paid $70 for the TV-7 in about 1994, and got the 667 for free from a relative who bought it at a garage sale for me.