Western Electric 421A

Western Electric 421A

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3 thoughts on “Western Electric 421A

  1. This tube is the end of the road for people that have OTL amps that use 6as7. 6060 or 5998. There are a lot of discussions on the web about this tube and that it’s just a re-brand of Tung-Sol 5998. I have to state with absolute certainty that this is not a re-brand, but a very unique tube. It has a few similarities with 5998, for example, the plate structure looks the same, but there are a lot of things that are quite different. First, the getter is located on the bottom for WE where Tung-sol has the getter on the top (this might seem like a small thing, but it is actually quite important since getter material, despite third mica gets all over the place during application and since Barium is a metal, it reduces tube performance (through the increase of capacitance)). Second, plate color is different with WE having carbon black plates instead of shiny black like Tung-sol. Third and most important, the sound is different. The general sonic signature is similar, but WE exhibit better bass response and overall dynamics and adds much more air and layers of details to the sound. These are getting very rare by the minute and becoming extremely expensive. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

  2. Tried to do a blind rolling of the WE 421A vs Tung-Sol 5998 with my friends (using Bottlehead Crack) and the winner was, with everybody agreeing, WE 421A. The delicacy and the details of the tube’s sound took everybody aback.

  3. Just got the 421a and although not fully burned in, yeah I got it NOS 😉 I can tell this is gonna be a special tube. My usually centered stage HD6XX sound like normal headphones did back in the 70’s , freakn awesome.

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