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In Reply to: RE: Siemens E83CC and other Siemens 12AX7 varieties posted by posbwp55@msn.com on October 18, 2009 at 21:34:18
The smooth plate Siemens-branded E83CC or ECC83 tubes that I have seen were actually EI old production, from "pre-war" Yugoslavia. They have long smooth plates with single getter supports, and etched codes showing "2A1" and the EI factory symbol (a semi-circle with a dot in the center). These EI tubes, marked as ECC83 or E83CC, resemble Telefunken smooth plates in terms of construction features, and apparently were made using Telefunken tooling. I bought two thinking they were actual Siemens, but they are very good tubes in their own right, and I see them on ebay all the time. For guitar amps I think they have a smoother overdriven tone than Telefunkens.
Siemens-made E83CCs have short ribbed plates, dual or triple micas, an "E0" type designation (where the "0" is a naught symbol), and an "unequal to" sign, indicating Munich production. The dual mica tubes have a single getter support. I have only one example of the dual mica version, which looks and sounds like other Philips/Mullard short plate ECC83s to me. As far as I know, it is the only dual mica tube to receive the Siemens "0" (naught) etched type code. But the triple mica version is quite different, and sounds very robust by comparison. It's not a warm tube, sounding brighter than the EI smooth plate, or a Philips/Mullard long plate, but less bright than a Telefunken or Heerlen-Philips. As previous posters have said, it has great accuracy, very tight bottom end, and excellent resistance to microphony. Another tube I have found to have similar qualities is the Brimar "T" 12AX7.
To the best of my knowledge, these E83CC tubes were all produced by Siemens, other than the EI rebranded smooth plate . The triple mica series of E81CC, E82CC, E83CC and 5751 tubes, identified by C0, D0, E0, and R0 type codes respectively, all have the Munich factory mark.
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