I am pretty certain that the French tubes, La Radiotechnique (RT) were actually made by this factory which was owned by Philips Europe. Has a unique acid etched code.
12au7 tube?
Looking for a good 12au7 (JJ ecc802s currently). I know the Telefunken ECC802s is the holy grail, but it comes at a price that is just too steep for me to justify. Many will recommend Mullard, but I always find them a bit too "wooly", lacking in definition. They're going in a Mastersound 845 Compact.
What tubes would you recommend that fits between the clarity of the Telefunken (without the price...) and the Mullard? I don't mind spending a bit of money on a pair (let's say max $500 for the pair, prefer to be lower if at all possible).
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Brent Jessee has the Phillips factory codes and how to read them on his site here: Mullard, Philips, and Valvo Tube Codes Phillips owned many of the popular NOS tube manufacturers. Brent says one thing I disagree with, though. That is that you only need to look at the etched codes when the labeling is not readable. Phillips labeled tubes made in one factory with the brand of another factory all the time. You have to look at the etched codes to know where a tube came from and when it was made. They can be hard or impossible to read, though. |
@signaforce + 1 on the 60s Brimar, cv4003. Use them in my DAC & much preferred over many of the other usual suspects. I believe the 50s Brimars are even better but good luck finding a pair south of $500. |
@audiojan Nice selection of tubes. Enjoy! |
I bought a preamp that came with a bunch of extra tubes. One of the selling points was six brand new PSVANE 12au7 tubes that were still in perfect boxes with Viva stickers on them. I put in the first two and within 72 hours one of the tubes started making crackling static noises. I put in another set and the same thing happened after about a week. I put the set in and in about 12 hours it started again. Over the coming weeks I played with different combinations using a Telefunken that I knew was good and when all was said and done, I had only one PSVANE tubes that worked! That’s when A, I started buying matched set of New Mullard, Gold Lion, Tungsol and NOS RCA and Amperex tubes. All worked great and I waited two weeks with each before trying the next set. I settled on the RCA Cleartops and they’ve been in a few months now. And B, I sent emails to PSV and Viva. Viva said because I didn’t buy them I was out of luck. And PSV kinda blew me off as well. A couple of weeks later I read an article saying that PSVANE had put out a batch of 12au7 Art series tubes that were bad. Again I sent emails mentioning the article to PSV and Viva and still they won’t budge! So that’s why I will never buy PSVANE tubes again and I will never buy from Viva again. |
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