Live from Hong Kong : Showroom Opening

Hi!

Here a few impressions from the opening day of the showroom in Hong Kong.

Azzolina Audio Mojo speakers driven by 211/211 single ended mono amplifiers:

The amplifiers are the version with the ELROG ER27A rectifiers in the power supply. While the ELROG ER211 is used as driver, we equipped the output sockets with the molybdenum plate ER242. The 845 mono blocks in the front could be hooked up alternatively.

Two sets of preamplifiers available to be swapped between. A 10Y linestage and D3a phono and a set of my statement preamplifier with differential all silver 10Y line and EC8020 phono stage. A Garrard 401 with a Thomas Schick plinth and arm. Cartridge is a Lyra Etna.

For the opening we received a nice flower bouquet as welcome gift which was placed at the entrance.

Right after opening we had the room full with the first visitors.

A lot of discussions about the gear and of course also listening:

It's been a great first day and we enjoyed it a lot.

The opening of the showroom continues until April 10th. Visit us in room 304 in the Carnival Commercial Building, 18 Java Road, North Point, Hong Kong. After that arrangements for individual listening sessions can be made. Call or email Emmanuel Lebreton of Baoling Alternative Audio for an appointment.

Best regards

Thomas

Deutsche Elektronenröhren Manufaktur GmbH Anniversary

Hi!

Exactly one year ago I announced the founding of Deutsche Elektronenröhren Manufaktur GmbH as the new manufacturer of ELROG tubes.

A lot has happened during the first year. Many changes have been implemented in the tubes. Especially the 300B to resolve the reliability issues it had during the time of production under the old Elrog company. I am happy to report that since production is running under the new company we only received one failed tube back from the field, which got replaced on warranty of course.

On the photo above a pair of 300Bs of recent manufacture. The printing on the glass has been updated and now also shows the company name. Otherwise construction remains unchanged.

End of last year we announced the first new tube type, the 242, a molybdenum plate version of the 211. Producing the first batches took longer than we anticipated, but the first pairs have been delivered and everybody who put in a pre order will receive his tubes soon. I'd like to thank everybody who pre ordered this tube for the support and patience. Those who wanted to place a pre order but had been asked to wait: We will first fill all existing orders which will take until September. Then we will accept orders for the 242 again.

I have been asked if we plan to introduce a similar variant of the 845. Yes this is in the planning and we are producing first prototypes. This tube will be named 284. I will announce availability on the blog, which will probably be around October.

During the High End fair in Munich we launched our first rectifier, the ER274B. Since the ER274A is the same tube with UX4 base instead of Octal base, we decided to make that one as well:

Both the ER274A and ER274B are available and  can be ordered.

In the last factory update I announced plans to develop ELROG 801A and 50 and opened a crowd funding campaign for this. Although we did not quite reach the anticipated number of pre orders, we decided to go ahead with the development. Thanks to everybody who supports this development with his pre order. Development of the tubes and making of tooling is starting in September and we expect to ship the tubes by end of this year. here a photo of a prototype of the 50 which was already made by the old Elrog company:

And lastly I'd like to announce that the 211 and 845 are now being made in a new style.

The old style 211 and 845 generated a lot of heat around the base since the electrode system was mounted close to the bottom. There had been good reasons to do that, namely short signal path and rigidity. However some amplifiers have poor ventilation around the bases which could cause heat issues. So we decided to do a redesign and move the internals closer to the top.

This greatly reduces the heat around the base by some 50 degrees Celsius.

Electrically and sonically we could not detect any difference compared to the old tubes.

Now the glow is much better visible from the top, since the getter is fired around the base.

Thanks to all who supported Deutsche Elektronenröhren Manufaktur GmbH. We are looking forward to our second year and the introduction to all the planned new developments.

Best regards

Thomas

News from the ELROG Tube Factory 6

Hi!

The staff at Deutsche Elektronenröhren Manufaktur GmbH worked extremely hard during the last weeks to finish and test our new tube developments in time for presentation at the High End 2017.

In the last update I already revealed the ER274B rectifier as one of our new tubes. Here it is complete with stamping and packaging:

In the last post I wrote that this is the very first thoriated tungsten full wave rectifier in tube history. This is not exactly true. The UX213 was a very early rectifier which used thoriated tungsten filaments. But it was mostly produced as prototypes and barely any were sold on the market. It was soon  replaced by the UX280 which has an oxide coated filament.

But nevertheless we are very proud of this achievement to offer the only rectifier on the market with the advantages of thoriated tungsten.

While other full wave rectifiers arrange the two plates side by side we stacked them on top of each other.

With a single set of filament strings running through both of them.

Here we see the rectifier in a test power supply. With the lights off it creates a stunning light show:

Having developed the ER274B, offering the 'A' version was a small step:

This is the same rectifier but with UX4 base instead of Octal.

Expect to see amplifiers from me using this rectifier soon!

But this is not all yet!

End of last year we announced the ELROG ER242, a variant of the ER211 with molybdenum plate. It took us longer than expected to get the peculiarities of molybdenum sorted out and to get the first batch of tubes.

Finally the first pairs will be shipped to those who placed pre orders. For these special tubes we also made a new packaging.

Thanks to all who pre ordered this tube. The deliveries will happen soon! Around October we will start another batch. Due to the difficult manufacturing process this tube will only be made in limited batches.

I often get questions about other new tube types. The tubes above will certainly not be our last new developments. But before starting any new types I would like to collect some feedback. We are considering development of these types next:

ER50 : A replacement for the famous type 50 triode
ER801A : A replacement for 10Y and 801A triodes
ER5U4G : Another full wave rectifier

Please send me an email or leave a comment under this post if you would be seriously interested in any of these types. Or leave suggestions for other tube types. In case there is enough demand we will start the next development in some form of crowdfunding scheme. Pre orders will be accepted for the new type and as soon as enough pre orders are collected the tubes will be made. In case the pre order process will not yield enough funds to start the development, those who entered orders will be refunded. This way you will be able to support the development of new tubes. Those who support us with pre orders will get a better price as that after market introduction.


Best regards

Thomas

ELROG ER242C - 211 With Molybdenum Plate

Update: We received pre orders for the entire first lot which is planned. So we cannot accept any more pre orders for the ER242C at this time. Another lot will probably be started around October 2017.


Hi!

Since I wrote about the future of the Elrog tubes, I am often asked if there will be new developments. I am very happy to announce a new Elrog tube type, the ER242C, a replica of the Western Electric 242C.

The 242 was first introduced by Western Electric as 242A with metal plate. It was later replaced by the 242B which had a graphite plate. In it's final release as 242C the plate was metal again using molybdenum and with a maximum plate dissipation increased to 100W.

It is basically a 211 with metal plate and increased plate dissipation. It can be used in any 211 amplifier without changes.

The photos show prototypes of the ER242C. These are without the characteristic black area and don't have any printing on the glass yet. The final version will get the same blackened area and the printing, similar to the 211:

Here a close up to show the different plates:

Molybdenum is very difficult to work with. After many trials we came up with a 4 piece plate structure which is assembled together with screws.

In normal operation the plates glow orange:

The plates are intended to be operated like that.

Here the tubes are working in my 801A/211 mono blocks.

Some close ups to the beautiful orange glow:

Quite a sight to behold!

We will do a first limited production run of about 20 pairs next year In February / March. If you are interested to get a pair, we are starting to accept pre-orders for the ELROG ER242C. Due to the difficult forming and assembly process of the molybdenum plate structure, these tubes will have a 50% price premium over the standard ER211.

Orders from within the European Union will be handled directly be us. Please contact me by email or phone. Contact information can be found under the Impressum link.

If you are in  the US or Canada you can buy Elrog tubes and pre-order the ER242C through George Lenz of tubesUSA.

I am happy to announce two new distributors for ELROG tubes:

For China, Hong Kong and Taiwan contact Emmanuel Lebreton.

Robert Lai of Live Acoustics represents Elrog in Singapore.

All other regions will be served directly. If you are interested to represent the Elrog brand in your area, please contact me. I hope to announce more distributors soon.

The sound of the molybdenum plate tubes is beautiful. They improve on the qualities of the ER211 with added ambience and resolution. Of course the subjective sound impression of these can vary between different amplifiers and different people might have different perceptions.

I expect the first batch of ER242C tubes to be reserved very quickly. Depending on demand and feedback from the first users we will occasionally make batches of these and might introduce molybdenum plates also as an option for the ER300B

Stay tuned for more news from the tube factory and for new tube type introductions!


Best regards

Thomas