And yes an E188CC is always made on Philips tooling whatever the logo for the customer. Some of the parts have sélection sorting out at Herleen, etc.
But people buy labels...C3A, etc w/o knowing, mixing Siemens with Telefunken thinking copycat better than the original, etc.
I can personnaly say here in France we can make bad wines too.
Sometimes it is clear, the several Philips plants in France were labelle Philips. We made some of their TV as well...long time ago.
And now we have guys that think à Vostock copy is better than Philips....sad world. You have now guys making i/V stages with microphonic DHT because the hype of the wine étiquette (literally small ethic), what à sad world. What a waste.. mostly. Some even think the ECC88 is a copy of the maga 6dj8 invented in USA because GE all wokism those days.
So yes, rigth information matters...then different tastes, some like EI and rhink rhe best ECC88, and some like I think they sound more like an 6922.
And some, even worst, think 6922 better than ECC88.
But people buy labels...C3A, etc w/o knowing, mixing Siemens with Telefunken thinking copycat better than the original, etc.
I can personnaly say here in France we can make bad wines too.
Sometimes it is clear, the several Philips plants in France were labelle Philips. We made some of their TV as well...long time ago.
And now we have guys that think à Vostock copy is better than Philips....sad world. You have now guys making i/V stages with microphonic DHT because the hype of the wine étiquette (literally small ethic), what à sad world. What a waste.. mostly. Some even think the ECC88 is a copy of the maga 6dj8 invented in USA because GE all wokism those days.
So yes, rigth information matters...then different tastes, some like EI and rhink rhe best ECC88, and some like I think they sound more like an 6922.
And some, even worst, think 6922 better than ECC88.
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Its off the subject of EI but are the Mazda made in France and Holland the Adzam ones? Mazda backwards?
EDIT: Seems Adzam were also made all over the place. Heerlen and Blackburn for sure. Even spotted a Siemens badged tube with a blackburn code while looking on the bay 😀 I think everybody was subbing new orders to whoever had spare capacity at the time.
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I think Mazda may well have been made in France at some point. They seem to have had tubes made across the continent however I'm not sure their "England" ones were actually made in England. Made from England parts maybe but like I say the seal lines on the top and the point do not match the Mullard made ones I have because all my BB Mullard have a visible and feelable seam across the top and tidy points whereas the Mazda England which matches the construction of all of my Mullards in terms of parts has an invisible seam to the eye and touch so I guess they were put together somewhere else on a differnt machine or different tools.
Pity they have no etched code on any of them. Trying to hide they aren't made in England in order to export to the US market? They printed BVA on them so maybe Mullard were subbing work out to other companies? Or maybe they are a much later date than any of my Mullards and new machines / tools eradicated the visible seam you see on their 50s/early 60s tubes.
These days its pretty common practice to find stuff subbed out to other companies, even competitors and then they charge premium for their own builds despite in some cases the subbed ones being better quality. Bit like the early MIJ Fenders being better than the USA ones which made Fender USA up their game.
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Not exactly. La Radiotechnique was located at Chartres, France (see RTC = Radio Technique Chartres).
Best regards!
I think it was at Chatelrault plant but my wife says I am an Idiot and I mix with rhe TV big tubes and TV aseembly. But she said (she maybe read not the same book than you guys) than some where also not made just in Holland, Herleen but Suresnes too. Odd as she usually know more about LVMH fab plant (they are going to teach americans to makes art handbags for a LVMH plant there) I wonder if she chat here behind my back...
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Seeing as we are looking at EI within this thread here's my Mazda "grail" smooth long plates. I've put grail there to be cheeky because that is what some people are putting in their listings 🙂 Internal construction is based on the telefunken of course.
Code is 1A1 or 7A7 ? m7H where the "m" is actually the half circle with dot in centre for EI. Is that 1967? in a 3 digit code format instead of 4 digits for post 1960? or is it 1957 which would work with the 3 digit format?
Sonically it is a glorious tube. Nice lush upper bass into mids. Quite well detailed. Overall it does old rock well, modern music pretty well. I haven't tried classical or jazz on it but I suspect it would sound very nice on those genres too. I say "quite well detailed" because it is my 3rd best sound 12AU7 behind 2nd place '58 Mullard Mitcham K61 O getter and 1st place '55 Brimar angled square getter however it sounds better than all of my post 60s tubes as well as various late 50s ones. Better than a '59 Mullard Blackburn. Better than a '59 Heerlen Bugle Boy. It is a very nice sounding tube.
Code is 1A1 or 7A7 ? m7H where the "m" is actually the half circle with dot in centre for EI. Is that 1967? in a 3 digit code format instead of 4 digits for post 1960? or is it 1957 which would work with the 3 digit format?
Sonically it is a glorious tube. Nice lush upper bass into mids. Quite well detailed. Overall it does old rock well, modern music pretty well. I haven't tried classical or jazz on it but I suspect it would sound very nice on those genres too. I say "quite well detailed" because it is my 3rd best sound 12AU7 behind 2nd place '58 Mullard Mitcham K61 O getter and 1st place '55 Brimar angled square getter however it sounds better than all of my post 60s tubes as well as various late 50s ones. Better than a '59 Mullard Blackburn. Better than a '59 Heerlen Bugle Boy. It is a very nice sounding tube.