Metropoulos Forum

This tube I got for £3 from eBay arrived today. I popped it in V1, it's a very nice sounding tube. It's chock full of mids, there's no harsh frequencies, and there's a sortof 3D quality to the sound.

The tube says on it 'Tungsram', '12AX7', and 'MADE IN ENGLAND' on the front. It looks very similar to my Valvo ECC83's but only has 2 ribs at the top of the glass, one on each side (the valvo has 4). The glass is shaped slightly different than the valvo, it seems just a little bit straighter at the bottom (less rounded).

The structure inside the tube is identical to the Valvo, except that some of the wires/pins are gold or copper coloured where the Valvo's are silver.

Underneath the tube, moulded into the glass in the centre of the pins is a small 'G'. Similarly, inbetween pins 1 and 9 there is a '6' (or is it 9?) moulded into the glass. There's some white printing on the side of the tube close to the bottom, the code reads something like "B5H1".

Here's some pictures of the tube, I'll do a full sound report when I've had more time to listen to it:

The code sounds like a Mullard, but then again I'm no expert.

I came accross one exactly the same as this before in an old marshall combo, nice score. It's a Mullard. The B is for the Blackburn factory.

Paul

Awesome - I thought it was a Mullard as everything pointed towards that (shape, codes, what I'd heard they sound like etc.) but I didn't want to jump to conclusions without confirmation.

Mullard for £3 - not bad ey? I guess it's worth taking risks sometimes. I bought the tube buy it now with the blurriest picture ever that showed practically nothing about the tube, no description other than 'Tungsram 12ax7', expecting it to be a Tungsram (but secretly hoping for a Mullard!).

Paul is right!

It's a Mullard, made in Blackburn/UK in the 1-st week of Aug. 1965

Above the 4 digit code should be another with 3 digits!
I think on this tube it is "I63", what's the tube type.

Larry

Ah yeh - I can faintly see the remnants of what was a 3 digit code above the 4 digit one, but it's faded away to the point where I can't read it now.

I don't mean to hi-jack the thread, but I was just wondering as to the people on this board that are old enough to remember 1965.

Very interesting!
tungsram is a hungarian company (since 1896) (was world-famous before communist era or maybe after also?)

http://www.tungsram.hu/tungsram/downloa ... 6-1996.pdf

since 1989 General Electric - Tungsram

Bainzy,
Do you know story about "hungarian brand, made in england" tube thing?

All I know is that a lot of Mullard tubes were relabelled by other manufacturers

Bainzy wrote:All I know is that a lot of Mullard tubes were relabelled by other manufacturers

Ah! Thanks!

My Tungsram.
Is this NOS?

sub wrote:My Tungsram.
Is this NOS?

Shure! Btw one of the best sounding ECC83 ever made, but needs 8-10 hours burn in when new, before it sounds rich and warm

Larry

I've lot of tungsram like this (i dont't know where maybe in garage)
I found 2 pieces now
These are used tubes (maybe heavy used)

novosibir wrote:

sub wrote:My Tungsram.
Is this NOS?

Shure! Btw one of the best sounding ECC83 ever made, but needs 8-10 hours burn in when new, before it sounds rich and warm

Larry

Are you serious?........... Really?
Maybe i'm lucky

Thank you Larry

I had a mystery tube in my jcm800 v1. It sounds kick ass, everytime I would take it out and try something else it didn't sound as good. It said Westinghouse made in Holland. Its guts didn't look like an amperex though. I finally figured out it was a tungsram made in hungary. Somehow it got mislabeled. These tubes totally rock!!