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Amperex
Amperex ECC82 12AU7 Long Plates 45° Foil D Getter - Valvo Hamburg 1956 K62 - NOS
Amperex ECC82 12AU7 Long Plates 45° Foil D Getter - Valvo Hamburg 1956 K62 - NOS
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Product Summary
The top five sound qualities shared by German tubes are delivered with perfection by this lovely "Amperex" Valvo Hamburg tube, with further enhancements thanks to the ultra rare 45-deg foil D getter:
1) Holographic sound stage (leading brand: Telefunken)
2) Non-fatiguing top end extension (leading brand: Siemens)
3) Natural tone/flat midrange (leading brand: Valvo Hamburg)
4) Deeply controlled bass (leading brands: Valvo Hamburg & Siemens)
5) Ultra clarity and layered details (leading brand: Telefunken)
Sound Characteristics
Over the years, we have found the bass on Valvo Hamburg even more appealing than on Siemens (allegedly the King of Bass and that's fine) for a very important reason: there's added substance and weight to the lower midrange that makes the bass more pronounced without being overpowering. This special sound characteristic can only be found on Valvo Hamburg tubes. And because of the added substance in sound, the overall tonality of these tubes feels sweet, warm and musical, and the ambient clues sound closer to your ears. One may find Telefunken's midrange thinner compared to Valvo Hamburg as a trade-off of a more enveloping and curvier holographical sound stage...the law of physics applies here as well - the shape of sound can only change in one direction.
Professional Sound Evaluation
The tube worked wonderfully and sounded terrific in our professional studio setup for monitoring.
- Input: Cambridge Audio CXC V2 dedicated CD transport + Schiit Audio Bifrost 2 Multibit DAC
- Amplification: Handcrafted Bottlehead Crack Headphone amplifier
- Output: Neumann NDH 20 Closed Back Studio Headphones
Our full tube sound review was written 100% based on the actual listening experience while this tube was running in the system described above.
Professional Tube Testing
NO shorts, leakage or gas. NO noise or microphonics.
This tube tested Strong NOS (110%+ of nominal mutual conductance) and 100% balanced on a Mercury 2000 tube tester with the following result (mutual conductance both in uMhos and in percentage of nominal):
3,400/3,400(113%/113%)
Good tubes start at 2000 and new tubes (incl. NOS/NIB) 3,000 - 3,100, and the Mercury 2000's rated mutual conductance (nominal) for new tubes is 3,000. Test result can also be seen in the pictures. In case you wonder what all these numbers mean to your sound experience, it's actually quite straightforward: mutual conductance directly translates to a tube's ability to amplify sound, so the higher the numbers the better.
Appearance & cosmetic condition
Nearly 100% of the paint and lettering is intact on this tube, and the acid-etched Valvo Hamburg date code is perfectly visible:
K62 D6J (K62 = ECC82 long plates production gen #2, D = Hamburg, 6 = 1956, J = October)
