Labratory

Here you will find a few highlights of the V.T.S. Analog laboratory. This is one of, if not the, finest and most complete audio-tube testing facilities in the world. These instruments are calibrated to the same National Institute of Standards (test #910675) that the original manufacturers used. This gives me a long term accuracy and absolute calibration to the original specifications reaching back to the 1920s!

Primary Testing Console
The V.T.S. Grand Master Analog Tester
Featuring Weston and General Radio

The Weston Model 329 & 370 analog meter and General Radio tube Bridge used in the primary testing console are the all time world analog standards. The meters in the main bank alone weigh in at 135 pounds. The entire test console with power supplies tips the scale at 1,058 pounds.
(For size perspective, the tube in the bridge is an RCA 245 output tube)
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Secondary Testing Console

Featuring Weston, Western Electric, and Hickok

The secondary tube testing console features (L to R) a WESTON 788 Vacuum Tube Analyzer (Cir. 1939) with an added WESTON Model 301 meter for plate current
(cir. 1901). (the build on this unit is exceptional, like a Swiss watch! Flawless even after 60 years! Where is all the plastic crap there are making today going to be?....at the bottom of the DUMP!) The Heath TT-1 in the center is the early version with the WESTON meter as compared to the later SIMPSON meter. This unit also is equipped with external WESTON metering seen above the unit. The third tester
is a flawless AT&T Long Lines calibrated WESTERN ELECTRIC KS-15750-L1 built by Hickok.

(For size perspective the tube in the WESTON 788 that appears small is a Globe 50).
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RCA WT-100-A
Laboratory Type Tube Tester

The RCA WT-100A tester is a more modern (Cir. 1960s) unit that was developed for, and is particularly good at testing large batches of the same tube. It is very good at catching some of the later hi-tech (i.e. Troublesome) tubes like the 6DJ8, etc...in the act of misbehaving. This unit is large & complex and though it only has one meter almost all of the controls are multi-task types that go up & down in multiple steps and turn around. This model of tester was reportedly used, at times, on the production line at RCA in Harrison, New Jersey.

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