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Lately, I've been sampling through some French-made 12AU7/ECC82s - CIFTEs, Philips-branded things with silver plates and lots of mica, Mazdas, and RTs. So far, besides many of them looking a bit unusual - lots of stuff going on inside the tube bottle with many mica spacers, supports, funky looking plates - I've pretty much liked them. I've read some unfavorable comments on the CIFTE 5-Star 6189/12AU7WA. At first it sounded very course, closed, cold, and lacking in dynamics, but after serveral days and severals tens of hours of burn in I liked the way they sound. Any one else sampled the tube flavors of France?- SJ
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I've never heard a French tube I thought was better than a 1960s USA made equivalent, or even really as good as low rent types like late GEs. Exalting Ciftes, Mazdas etc. falls into the category of "OH! It's European! Must be GREAT!" This Euro-boutique mindset has been taken to the extreme. Yes, Amperex/Philips of Holland (and their Belgian plant) made incredible tubes; I especially like their 12AU7s, 12AX7s, and EL34s. In the right gear, Telefunkens' are nice, their 12AU7s more so than their 12AX7s IMHO. There are some phenomenal Valvo and Siemens 12AU7 and 12AX7 variants, and Mullard made great stuff. I'm sure I'm missing some, but the French stuff isn't among them. The whole "now, don't make blanket statements, different strokes for.. folks, YMMV, etc etc" is true to a point, but not when it is used to price a universally known piece of crap like Mazda 12AX7s at $80 when a $25 RCA STOMPS it. Yes, tubes perform differently in each system, and personal taste makes a huge difference.... but I know for a FACT that Blatz beer is a LONG way from Labatts or even MGD. Some things JUST SUCK, and every French made tube I've heard in many different systems is part of that group.
The only French I've sampled is the RadioTechnique 5814--1960's military vintage. It's one of the better 12AU7 types I've tried so far. I used this tube for about 4 months until it was replaced by the Valvo ECC186. The RT 5814 has its detractors, whose sonic description of this tube is essentially opposite to mine. Nevertheless, the RT 5814 performed very well in my amp.
I've tried most of them. Lots of different brandings for the Mazda French produced ones - Belvu, CIFTE, Perle...other names. Quite honestly, the CIFTE 5-star is the worst - very bright, unbalanced sounding. There is an earlier version with quite different plates that is just superb, and the slightly later silver plate version is very nice (but be careful of EI silver plate being rebranded Philips by some Far East dealer). There are two versions of the Radiotechnique also, a longer and shorter plate. The shorter is much better, neither are great 12AU7's, but the longer plate one sounds flat in comparison.
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