Tung-Sol metal base 7236’s were quite plentiful last year. A ham radio guy was selling them on fleabay for $35 a pop. I bought four from him. Since then, the supply dried up apparently.
They’re quite nice, but I prefer the more laid-back nature and larger soundstage of the RCA 6AS7G’s ('50’s black plates).
I just picked up one of those on eBay for $20.50 and five bucks shipping. Very happy about that. It’s 30th week of 1960 made and tests at 85/84.
I’ve been working on spiffing up my Crack, it’s finally finished being spiffed.
When I originally got it used , it needed a bit of TLC. It was professionally built and well built at that but the ground plate was covered in a half-assed powder coating job and the box had been bonked in one corner.
Before:
And After:
I’m amazed that the carpenter I took it to said he could fix it with steam and a hot iron. Completely straightened it back up and bull nosed it a bit, gives it a softer period look. I’m very happy with the way it all came out. I spend a lot of time sanding and finishing but it now looks as good as it sounds.
Something else I thought you guys would get a laugh about. My wife said “Oh you got a new light bulb for your stereo”.
I love that woman so much I’ve stayed married to her since 1989!
For most woods, if its dented and not huge, you put a moist rag on it then heat it with a soldering iron. This pops it back out amazingly well. It even works with certain finishes as well but not all
The owner of the crack that I bought has just sent me this picture of tubes he has for it. I don’t know what they should cost, I will talk to him. But maybe someone can see something there that I should get.
Unfortunately I can only upload a screenshot.
Scroll through here and see if you can identify any of them:
Thank you, that is useful! I´ve had a phonecall with the seller and he will send me more infos of what he has there. I will see what i get than. Cant spent so much money since i didnt want to buy a crack and bought a crack haha.
That was the correct move 
I did that somehow too xD
Haha, i guess sometimes these things happen in this hobby 
I mean, for me it was simply the one opportunity to buy one without stress…I nearly bought it at bottlehead sale, but the 90$ shipping to germany ( plus annoyance with customs, customs fee, taxes) and the fact that i just didnt wanted to spent more money that month held me back from buying it. And yesterday, i get the notification that one is for sale here in germany, built, for a really good price. I had to buy it. Even tho i had the goal to not spent hundreds of euros for gear this month.
I love mine with the Speedball mod paired with the HD600s & Beyer DT880 (600 Ohm).
My crack and a few tubes arrived today.
Now testing 
First Edit:
I have crackling in the left channel. Pretty bad crackling. Seems like i have to do troubleshooting…maybe. I let it run first and see if it fixes itself…
So the crackling remains till now, i think i have to check all the solderjoints. And im really not so sure from the first impressions. Its lacking so much low end compared to the darkvoice. Can anyone say something to this topic? I have the first impression that it sounds cleaner than my darkvoice but it has no lowend. I have them standing side by side and plugging my T1 into the Darkvoice lets them sound so much better because it gives the music much more body. I have changed tubes a bit till now. Im running the Svetlana and the Toshiba tube now.
From what ive read after a quick search, the thing with the lowend could come from bad solderings. Probably thats the reason the owner sold it haha.
The sound doesnt seem right to me.
Hope i can sort it out.
First thing I would suggest is moving it away from your other gear. When mine is too close to the DAC or even my phone sometimes it picks up interference. Next I would roll of few tubes and try to rule that out as well.
Sorry you are having issues. I hope you can sort it out.
No lack of low end here w/ the hd 6xx.
You probably saw this on your quick search, but seems like a good start would be -
“Visually inspect all of you solder joints and retouch any that look iffy. It could be a bad joint somewhere on the power supply terminals around the power transformer. Touch up the filter capacitor connections and it might go away.”
“when I had flat bass I needed to resolder T13 as my joint was flaky. Voltages checked out fine before and I only noticed it while implementing some mods. Bass is definitely present after fixing that joint.”
Get youself a copy of the build manual and follow the testing guide. Then go to the BHC forum with your issues & results (the ones failing or not testing as they should) I’d bet someone will point you the exact issue. There’s that much knowledge there.
That being said, you clearly have a hardware problem, look there. Your build is changed quite a bit from stock so something in the modification process may need redoing.
Anything short of an enjoyable listening session on them with an HD600 series can means there’s something wrong cause it’s that sweet a pairing.
Hey guys, thanks for the tips!
@donjklassen @db_Cooper @db_Cooper i have rolled a few tubes already,it doesnt change anything with the crackling. Just have moved it away from the other stuff and it still crackles. It does it even when its turned on and the headphone is plugged in but no RCA.
The previous owner has sent the printed manual with it, so i will go through the testing the next days and see if i can find something wrong there.
Otherwise i will go on the Bottlehead forum, have noticed that you can get pretty good help there.
Dang sorry dude those were the quick and easy things I could think of… @db_Cooper set you on the right path 
Good luck and keep us posted
So I couldn’t remain calm and do nothing. I pulled the plate sideways and touched all the joints. I had a new hum in the left channel. I found one broken solder joint and fixed it.
That resulted in overall quieter crackling, but its still there and sometimes it gets a bit louder. The hum is gone. Tomorrow I will check all the other connections.
I’m happy that I found atleast something that was wrong even though it hasn’t fixed it. gives me hope for the ongoing troubleshooting
You should post on the Bottle Head forums, they are really good at diagnosing issues, and helping getting them resolved.
