|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
65.35.66.243
Does anyone know if Mullard manufactured ECC83 tubes (ex. B7B3-Blackburn production or any other date) with other company labels screened on them (ex. Telefunken, Phillips, etc) were made exactly as brand name Mullard tubes of the time or were made to meet any of those other company's individual specifications? In other words, is a Mullard a Mullard or is a Mullard a Mullard made but to Telefunken spec, for ex? Hope these questions are clear. Thanks a lot.
Follow Ups:
Thanks to all those who responded. Very informative.
see the link below....
Marshall George,Mullard became attached to Philips so you will often see early-mid 70's Amperex -the "orange globe" labelled that will have Mullard, Blackburn etched codes. I have both ECC83 and ECC88s so labelled. These tubes- to me- are indistinguishable from the Dutch or German Philips tubes of the same era.
I may not be paying enough attention, but I can't spot differences in construction between those 70's Mullard made Amperexes and mid 60's Dutch Amperex Bugle Boys.
There are common manufacturer rebranding of Mullard tubes- a common example I've seen would be with mid-60's Fisher gear. The 800D receiver I have happens to have 8-smooth plate Telefunken ECC83s, but I often see sets of Fisher labelled Mullards for sale that came from these mid-60's Fishers.
My EICO HF-14 has all it's original and again they are "EICO" Mullards. I think some Dynaco PAS preamp kits came with "Dynaco-Mullards".
I'm certain others will come up with other manufacturers that relabelled Mullards. Like telefunken, Mullard was a known "premium "maker and the gear mkaers would keep "Mullard" on display as a sign of higher quality.
In answer to your question, Mullards are not strictly Mullards- depending on the era they were made. They eventually became Philips tubes that shared Philips tooling and standards. These "Mullards" to me sound identical to the contemporary Philips stuff being done on the Continent. I think there were even Mullards made in this system as far flung as the Philips factory in Australia- though I may misremember.
The inter-relationship of tube makers gets very complicated by about 1980!
Cheers,
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.
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,
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: