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In Reply to: Slightly Complicated posted by Bambi B on March 17, 2006 at 08:16:48:
in 1927, to make things more complicated. Tubes like a 6DJ8 or 6922 was a a Philips invention, so technially all the tooling was manufactured my Philips or to their plans.
That being said, there are sonic differences between the Dutch, Mullard, German and American tubes, even though they may essentially look to be the same. Maybe it's the "water"......8^).
Most tubes tend to sound very much like their manufacturer's sonic trademarks, however.
Follow Ups:
unclestu52,Thanks for the clarifications/additions. I find I've never really had a clear concept of the Philips/Mullard relationship- I assumed the buyout occurred in the late 60's.
Yes, there are certainly differnces in tubes made by Philips plants Hamburg or Heerlen, but it seems to me as time went on the differences seem to be less and I can't actually destinguish the sound of a late Hamburg 6201 from a Blackburn one.
Someone commented that the differences were due to variations in the "cathode melt" which I don't know more about than what the name suggests, but it must be one of the more important and subtle tube making arts. The explanation I heard was that in each factory this would vary slightly so that even with identical mechanical design and tooling, the chemistry -the "water" was different and as you say made the sound vary a bit. I may misremember, but by one account it was the cathode melt that the revived Western Electric Co. could never get correct after an old supply ran out and contributed to their halting new WE 300B production.
Cheers,
I may be wrong but I was being facetious about the 'water'. All factories had to use at the minimum distilled water, and water cleanliness was quite important. I really doubt if the water had anything to do with it.
I believe differences disappear over time simply because the construction of the tubes start dropping. Somehow in the 50's and the 60's, perhaps because we couldn't make better caps and resistors, manufacturers concentrated on tubes. Later when we get better plastics and other technologies, there is a greater concentration on the other products.
When one closely examines tubes as they evolve, you notice a simplification in their construction: mica sheets become less elaborate in their punch outs, there are less 'fingers' on the mica sheet to contact the tube walls, 6FQ7's completely eliminate the center shielding plate, etc., etc. All this points to a steady decline in the construction quality of the tubes themselves. Who knows what else was being scrimped upon.?
unclestu52,I was quoting "water" back as symbolising the "magic stuff" that tube makers had in the Golden Age of vacuum tubes -what should we call it- 1953 to 1967?
Your certainly correct that the quality of tubes declined- the apsects of the construction you mentioned are noticable. When Siemens and Halske slipped off the Halske and the S&H logo, "Siemens" tubes became very different. The older S&H E188CC (7308) is battleship ready with thick bar double getter supports and a thick splatter shield while the later one "Siemens" has a big round hoop getter on a spindly little single copper wire. Guess which sounds far better and has lower microphonics and noise?
It seems to me, generalising, that tubes had a kind of continuous high standard until about 1968 and there was around then seveal companies that quit or merges and all seemed to have whole new lines of lower quality tubes. Amperex in about 1968 or 69 changed to teh "orange globe" logo ones, and of course Telefunkens were rebranded tubes from Eastern Europe - RTF, EI, and even the US. Our friend Micron had quite a few NOS "Telefunken ECC801S" tubes which were TFK labelled and boxed, but the tubes within were GE 6201's. I have 5- NOS "RCA" 12AX7s marked "Made in Britain", but which are actually RFT's. The "Britian" was probably a dodge on East German stuff or something. Yes, definitely, tubes hit the skids by about 1986 when the worst tubes ever made were produced- several types of Philips ECG.
Still, power tubes are really good now- or rather again- thanks to guitar players- and the small tubes are coming around, with some premium "reissue" models, testing the market for new $25 12AX7s.
So, there's hope.
Cheers,
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