Posted by Bill [ 24.90.103.243 ] on January 10, 2006 at 22:13:43:

In Reply to: Re: New tungsols from SRS tubes and hickock results posted by Russellc on October 22, 2005 at 08:23:08:

Hmm, I just had a bad experience with this tube deaker SRS still unresolved too. I started doing a search for other opinuons on them and found this thread. In my case I ordered a quad set of Mullard reissue EL34 tubes from their webstore site which turned out to be a big mistake (I should have ordered through ebay for more buyer's protection) Then again in hindsight, I should have never ordered from this guy to begin with.
The sale started out with a 1 month delay in getting my tubes. They are in NY and I am in NYC. The tubes should have arrived in two to three days. Somehow it got lost in the USPS system and I went around in circles waiting for SRS to file a claim for me to get either a refund or replacement tubes. SRS filed a claim (they say) with the USPS and said the rest was up to me to wait for the USPS to contact me. Of course I was in constant contact with my post office manager who who to this day says they never received any communications nor claims and knows nothing about it. The postal manager did say it was out of his hands and would be handled by the postal inspection department. But I never received any letters or calls from the USPS. I did keep complaining with my local post office and they said that they lost it. But then just about a month later, they delivered it to me! SRS in the mean time stopped responding to my emails. Well by then I had put aside my tube amps project, so the tubes sat in the box for another week or so until I finally had the time to set up the amps and try them out.
Well, upon opening the square US Priority box with the mulluard tube boxes well padded inside, I measured the tubes on my top of the line B&K 747B tube tester, 3 of the EL34 tubes measured BAD and one measured good. I thought what the heck? I installed them in my excellent working shape Eico HF-60 monoblock amps and biased them up. I noticed that on one amp the bias balance was acting weird and not able to balance properly. So I tapped lightly on one of the EL34 tubes in the amp to see if the bias voltage would change. Keep in mind, I had the bias voltage in safe operating range with less than 45ma flowing through the tubes... the one bad tube sparked or arced internally and began flashing blue light sparks! I said what the @%$!#>?! They sent me bad tubes. In addition to those three tub es measuring very weak (BAD)in transconductance, that one sparking tube must have had loose grids or screens or something to short out like that with judt a tap on it. I wrote several times back to SRS explaining my dilema but they never answered me back until I wrote one last time saying that I was going to start filing complaints about them and posting to audiophile and tube forums about my bad experience. They answered back saying that I should file another claim with the USPS saying that the tubes were damaged by rough treatment while in the hands of the USPS for one month while they were lost. I highly doubt that the tubes were damaged like this by USPS since they were well packaged with cushioning and double boxed with padding in their own Mullard boxes too. I would recommend avoiding SRS as they refuse to reveal their contact phone number or business address even after asking them many times in all of my emails to them. They also stalled the time out so that the 45 day dispute policy time ran out such that I can no longer dispute it through paypal. So now I will have to hassle with this loss and hope that I can get resolution. Do you all want to go through this headache? Hope not. So don't buy from this small fry mom and pop shop business. They are shady and do not live up to their false advertising on their web-site. Needless to say, I am not happy about this dealer. So buyer beware. I guess they are hit or miss. My purchase missed.

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