I've tried a lot as well, and the based on my personal taste (detailed, yet fuller midrange with great extension and clarity) were the early 1960s USA white label Amperex 7308s. I've got an extra pair if you're interested and can provide the specs. The Holland Amperex 6922/7308 is extremely warm and rich, and the extremely rolled off. Best of luck. Though some say the orange and green label is the same as the white label Amperex, they do sound different to me and feel the white label is the best, especially early 60s medical/military grade.
Preamp 6922 tube help
So my favorite tubes out of all the ones I've tried are early 1960 Siemens CCA, i find them to have an exteremely clean sound, fuller flat, tight bass, great imaging, just everything you would want. But because my system is on the neutral, the CCA has tipped it to the brighter side because of the "sparkle". I was wondering if anyone had another recommendation for tubes that perform like the Siemens, with its sense of realism but without the brightness in my system.
Here are the tubes I've tried
Telefunken E88CC ULM - clean tubes but the bass is too rounded out.
Mullard E188CC - too warm, way too warm
Voskhod Singlewire - great tubes but just didn't feel like didn't have any characteristics
Reflektor Single Wire - seems like the mids were a bit warm, but very nice tubes, but i would always rotate them out after a period because they didn't feel too accurate, but very sweet.
Amperex - Forgot which ones but the highs and lows were rolled off.
Electro Harmonix 6922 - has a basic tube sound to them on the warm side of things.
Here are the tubes I've tried
Telefunken E88CC ULM - clean tubes but the bass is too rounded out.
Mullard E188CC - too warm, way too warm
Voskhod Singlewire - great tubes but just didn't feel like didn't have any characteristics
Reflektor Single Wire - seems like the mids were a bit warm, but very nice tubes, but i would always rotate them out after a period because they didn't feel too accurate, but very sweet.
Amperex - Forgot which ones but the highs and lows were rolled off.
Electro Harmonix 6922 - has a basic tube sound to them on the warm side of things.
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jea48, i think you made a mistake on those grey plate Siemens CCas. If you take a closer look, those are the silver plates or shields. You can see on the nearer tube where the shield is pinched (below the final s in Siemens) that it is clearly a shiny metal. That is what you don't want. Another indicator is the aluminum tag with the tube codes stamped on it above the silver shield. These are later vintage tubes and are supposedly (I've never compared them) brighter and poorer sounding in general than the grey shields. The grey shields have the codes etched into the glass like other Phillips tubes. That may be the OP's problem. If he got a pair of these instead of grey shields he would probably be disappointed. |
I am really looking for a tube that has a high sense of realism in the presentation. The CCa did it for me if it wasn’t for the listening fatigue, you heard every pluck of the strong, the bass was nice and tight, voices was clean and clear. In my experince tubes that have a high sense of realism were also very accurate in recreating tones. |
If anyone wants to study up on Phillips tube codes here's a link to the manual: https://frank.pocnet.net/other/Philips/PhilipsCodeListAB.pdf I will just add that you will probably only find tubes with the 'NEW' CODE format as seen on page 3, and probably only the top illustration with the codes etched into the glass on the side of the tube. |
tomcy6, Thank you. You are correct. I guess I just didn’t check out the pictures close enough. Taking another look sure enough I clearly can see the shiny metal plate and the aluminum tag with the stamped date codes. In my rush I guess I was trying to point out the differences in the two halo getter supports. The eBay seller says grey plate in his ad. Though he doesn’t say all gray plate. I knew better, I should have taken a better closer look at the pictures. How about the boxes shown in the ad? I though the blue / yellow boxes were for the older all gray plate Siemens tubes. Later dates were the orange / blue boxes weren’t they? http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Siemens-CCa-6922-6DJ8-Vacuum-Tubes-NOS-NIB-Amplitrex-Tested-Matched-Gold-P... For what it’s worth my first purchase of a pair of Siemens CCa tubes I bought here on Agon around 2004-2005. I was green and did not know what to look for. I thought I was buying the real deal but instead bought a pair with the rod halo getter support. And of course they had the same things you pointed out in your post. Thanks again, Jim |
- 45 posts total