The Western Electric 323A Thyratron circa 1943

The Western Electric 323A Thyratron has that classic Western Electric sound and excels at placing musical instruments and performers in your listening room with an amazing “you are there” quality. It's balanced sound adds just the right amount of transparent warmth without sacrificing detail. When compared to solid state based Active Shielding, harmonic texture and space are more naturally portrayed with greater air and natural mid-range texture. It is especially well suited to Jazz, Rock, and Acoustic performances but compliments all types of music. With the 323A you hear your recordings with realism and smoothness as never before in a spacious acoustic envelop.

Born for battle
The Western Electric 323A Thyratron was a work horse in US electronics during World War Two powering everything from radars to radios. So vital was it's role that it was packed in with the 82nd and 101st Airborne Rangers for their legendary drop on D-Day as a vital replacement part for communications between US Army Rangers on the ground, and Allied forces on the beaches of Normandy. Build quality reflects its intended use with rugged hand crafted attention to detail designed to meet the rigors of war. Packed in it's original date stamped box with dates between 1943 and 1945 marked “inspected US Army date xx 194X” these tubes were placed in storage and not opened since. Rated life expectancy is between 10,000 and 30,000 hours. In it's current mission the Enigma requires less then 10% of it's rated output so it should meet or exceed it's 30,000 hour rating before needing to be replaced. Obviously tubes engineered for our “boys over there” were built for a higher purpose. It is unlikely tubes will ever be manufactured to such high standards
again.