Dear all,
as many of you have tubes and many times we spent quite a lot, of course we all look for a fair trade and especially nicely matched tubes for your fragile Amp/PreAmp!
I’d spent a fortune on my 300b collection and some sellers are not trustworthy and you can only validate with your own measurements or you known someone! Yoop, wasted some €x.xxx 
and killed one channel of my fragile Cayin 805a 300b…
So i did quite an research on it and as I’m not a professional electronic engineer to be experienced enough to build something modern by myself, I ended up by this fantastic DIY project: RoeTest - Röhrenprüfgerät Röhrenmessgerät
FORGET all vintage tester and don’t trust blindly seller refering to their fancy Neubauer etc. Tube tester measurements!
So here you can read my journey, it is in German, just use google translator 
So if someone of you seriously looking for an TUBE MEASUREMENT (not just testing, which helps not really!), go for this project!
8 Likes
Interesting.
Do you know if it’s an impulse tester like the uTracer/eTracer, or does it correctly preheat the anode for testing. Not that it matters very much but it can result is artificially low emissions readings. I know EML warn about this.
Absolutly, does all the above + more.
So the guy behind it is well known in the analogue forum and if you ask around, this is the most sophisticated tester out there.
Unfortunately only DIY kit… the kit is ~€1.300 and I paid in total €2.800 because my DIY grandmaster also built all my necessary tube sockets.
He provides very sophisticated testing Software (only windows version available) for free. I know several US folks have built it…
3 Likes
It’s bit too limited in voltages to be ideal for what I’d want.
I’d like to be able to trace into A2 (positive grid), and I’d like to be able to trace 845’s and 211’s in a useful range.
But for most common tubes it would be fine.
Looks very similar to the uTracer and eTracer in functionality
uTracer is DIY only, and there is not standard packaging.
eTracer probably runs a similar cost once you actually buy all the bits
2 Likes
I’ve seen similar test benches for opamps too. There are some amazing DIY kits and projects out there.
1 Like
Ahh 845 and 211… this are voltage beasts
I’ve tested my 805a, was working fine…
Looking at various reviews, it looks like it has a real programmable high voltage power supply, so it can preheat the anode for testing.
Which neither the Utracer or Etracer can because they rely on not having to supply the high anode voltages continuously.
3 Likes
Ask Helmut Weigl, he is a real tube nerd
Info @ roehrentest.de
1 Like
