Test equipment score!

[Tubejunke]

Originally Posted by madlabs

Hope the eye in one of them is good, I looked and those things have gone through the roof!

Jonathan

Well, luckily most of the old cap checkers didn't use the now "through the roof" priced 6U5 and the somewhat cheaper 6E5 as we find in vintage radios. Instead they used the 1629, which are very reasonable. The later It series used the 6E5, which again are more reasonable than the heralded 6U5 which are simply depleting in numbers and sellers are jumping on the opportunity as would be expected these days. Luckily, I believe that there are conversion kits around that allow the 1629 to be used to replace both the 6U5 and 6E5.

I thought that Heath was using WW2 military surplus tubes in their kits which makes me wonder why they would still be plentiful today. Perhaps due to only limited amounts of kits and such as compared to decades of use in both manufacturer application and ultimate replacement of the 6U5.