Hi everyone! I've been a lurker on this thread since mid-'23 since I got my own HA-300. I've already climbed mount Elrog and paired them with a lovely quad of Mullard vr-135, but I struggled to find the elusive Japanese rectifier tubes until
@idairyou was kind enough to share the link to a supplier
. I requested 10x 22de4 tubes from their inventory, 5x Raytheon and 5x Westinghouse, and they were happy to provide an invoice that came out to $12 per tube. Just two days after I paid the invoice (with no shipping notice), the tubes arrived, and as I opened and inspected each one I realized that several of the tubes were not identical to the majority I had among each brand.
I wanted to share the differences I noticed in case any of the tube experts here might enjoy inspecting them and sharing their insights:
First off we have the two kinds I expected to receive: Westinghouse Japan and Raytheon Japan. These look almost identical to the ones
@idairyou received, except "Japan" is printed on the glass of the Raytheon tubes instead of the base (you can see it on the left). 4/5 of my Westinghouse tubes look like this, while 2/5 of my Raytheon match the one below. I'm calling these the "standard" tubes. I noticed the internal structure of these two tubes look the same, so I'm curious if they differ objectively in some way other than the brand name.
Next we have some minor variants. On the left, a Raytheon tube, also labelled Japan, but with only "22de4" on the glass, and the brand/origin printed on the base. It also says "Registered" under the Raytheon logo. Internals-wise, it appears identical to my eyes to the standard Raytheon. On the right, a Westinghouse with no printed origin that I can find, but it does have matte black bars along the length of the plate where the other tubes have polished silver ones. Calling this one WH Black. It also has a large ring parallel to the plate, larger than the other designs with one, which is wired to one of the top poles instead of the side of the plate.
Finally, two Raytheon tubes with "Made in U.S.A." printed on the glass. Both of these tubes have similar 3-piece silver slats along the plate, and a bar coming of the side of the plate where the other tubes have a ring.
Now at first I thought these two were identical, but on closer inspection I noticed a difference in the wiring beneath the bottom mica. In the image below I've placed them in the same orientation, and you can see that the left one has a white wire running off to the right that's the other one is lacking.
I'm a little scared of this extra-wire one because it emitted a camera-like flash when I powered up the amp with it inserted. No fuses were blown, and once the flash was gone it warmed up normally and didn't affect my listening. I managed to capture the flash before it disappeared on a subsequent test in a different socket.
Needless to say I won't be using this tube again unless I determine the flashing behavior is harmless.
I'll be sharing my tube-rolling impressions sometime soon. It hasn't taken long for me to see that these tubes are a step above my old RCA and GE sets.
I hope this helps anyone who's considering ordering from the supplier posted by
@idairyou. If anyone else ordered from there, please share if any of these variants showed up in your order, or if you got something new!
This tube combo is so powerful, immersive and highly engaging, and has all the tube goodness one could ever want, with detail and nuances through the roof.
I did go all-in on tube changes right away xD
