CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

RGBCRT · Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6

Hey everyone,

I found a place that has a few sets of brand new Barco G808s tubes that they are offering me at what seems like a pretty fair price. I have a G808s and am thinking about looking into these. My question is, does a tube sitting in storage make a difference? These all have dates on the boxes of 2004 and the tubes in my projector are really good so it could be many more years before I would ever actually swap them out. I'm guessing that with the decline of CRT's if I wait much longer I may never be able to purchase spares but I'm curious to know if there is a downside to tubes sitting for a while? Are they already too old being manufactured in 2004?

Any insight you can provide on this is greatly appreciated.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 5:00 pm Post subject:

Nope grab 'em!

Tom.W · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 6635

They should be just fine but you might want to put them on a good CRT tester to make sure if you plan on installing them later.

donaldk · Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 308

These Sony tubes are rare, and sought after, grab them at a good price, perhaps re-sell them to a non-local buyer.

RGBCRT · Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6

Thanks for all the quick replies everyone. Glad to hear the age/storage issue shouldn't be a problem. I'm going to go and talk to the company that has these this week. I haven't really discussed pricing or details with the place that's selling these but $1,500.00/per set is a figure that was mentioned. They have 3 or 4 sets. I'm not sure if I'll be able to talk them down any or not. From what I've read on here about not being able to refurbish these sony tubes, I was kind of assuming they may be kind of hard to come by. Does anyone know if $1,500.00 sound like a fair price for a set of new tubes? Like I said, the pricing hasn't necessarily been determined but if that doesn't sound like a good deal, I don't want to waste my money, especially since the current tubes in my projector still look so good.

betel · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 12:26 am Post subject:

Earlier this week on eBay, BG808S tubes sold for $100/R, $130/B, & $260/G. The R & B were new. The G looked new. They were advertized as BG808 tubes which may be why they didn't bring more. Not saying that is their value because it is so rare to see any for sale on eBay. However, I would be careful how much I invested in tubes with the intent to resale.

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 1:22 am Post subject:

Way overpriced IMHO. Unless you're running your set well over 5 hours a day, I'd say the set will start falling apart around the tubes in 7-8 years from now. I don't think anyone short of a simulator company will pay anything close to $1K per set of NOS tubes. No way I would, and I can usually get a bit of a premium price for parts that are tested and warrantied.\

Terry's price of $400 per tube for NOS 9" tubes were snapped up because they are 9" tubes, and lots of people have 9" sets..

dvh99 · Joined: 25 Dec 2009 Posts: 2158 Location: nederland

don`t tubes degrade over time even if not used, so they bloom sooner at higher contrast setting?

ecrabb · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 2:21 am Post subject:

I don't see why they'd degrade just sitting on a shelf.

$1500 for NOS tubes for a BG808s is pretty absurd, if for no other reason than the fact that a pristine BG808s with those same tubes in it wouldn't be worth that much.

Nice 8" machines are going for well under a grand these days. Given that, personally I wouldn't be comfortable paying even $500 for an entire set... I'm not saying they're not worth more than that on the open market or suggesting that some guys wouldn't be willing to pay more than that, but that's more than I'd be willing to pay.

SC

RGBCRT · Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Posts: 6

Thanks everyone for the information. You've definitely got me thinking..... I was under the impression that approx. $1,500.00/set was a ok price for new tubes since I know they cost a lot when they were new and readily available. I guess I'll have to see if I can get a better deal or not before I decide what I'm going to do. It would definitely give me piece of mind to have a spare set around incase anything happened to the ones in my projector now. I guess I have some thinking to do :p

Sparky015 · Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 1:30 pm Post subject:

I know these aren't Barco specials, but I listed a practically new set of Marquee 8" tubes with all magnetics and ASTIG for half that price, and I barely got any traffic, if that helps you at all. 8" tubes aren't worth a lot to the HT market any more it seems.

Chuchuf · Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Posts: 548

secstate · Joined: 20 Mar 2006 Posts: 720

As point of reference 4-5 years ago I think I got $300-400 for new Green and Blue Sony CRTs for the 808s. I think I got $150 for the red (always less demand) and this was when CRTs were hot and worth a lot more. I'd say these are worth $400-500 a set at best if purchasing for yourself and $150 a set or so if you want to do resale. I used to stockplile decent tubes but at the rate I use my set, the tubes are likely to outlast my projector's useful life so I got rid of them all.

yonexsp · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 311

Guess you know why they have been sitting on a shelf for 6 years, and will sit there for many years more to come at that price. Cwazzzy!!!

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

A CRT is just a specialized form of vacuum tube. NOS vacuum tubes that were made in the 50s and 40s and even earlier typically work as well when tested as the day they were made. I would not see any particular reason why a CRT should be expected to have a limited shelf life. Since their interior contains a pretty good hard vacuum, there is really no mechanism for any of the tube components to degrade in storage.

CJ