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Valvo
Valvo ECC82 12AU7 Long Plates Square Getter Matched Pair - Copenhagen 1955 K6B
Valvo ECC82 12AU7 Long Plates Square Getter Matched Pair - Copenhagen 1955 K6B
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$744.00 USD
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Product Summary
Is this reality? Or is this a fairy tale? All the bells and whistles for a vintage tube one can ever dream of packed in ONE "super tube" package: the old-style Valvo printing, the elusively rare 17mm long plates, the unmistakable beautiful square getter, also 45-deg angled, the 1950s' two-digit date code between the pins, and from where? Look again. It's NOT the "delta" symbol you typically see on Philips tubes made in Heerlen, Holland, but the isosceles triangle (∆) that stands for the Philips Copenhagen factory. When was the last time you saw one of these?
Sound Qualities
The most distinctive sound feature of the Philips ECC82 is the transparent, natural and expansive midrange presentation, with a slight touch of warmth that illuminates your music. Every piece of music you play through these tubes sounds like from a vinyl record, whether your sound source is phono or not. This "template sound" remains the same across all Philips factory, from Heerlen to Eindhoven to Copenhagen, from Monza to Buenos Aires.
The sound stage is spacious, structured and holographical. Bass is incredibly deep but well controlled and feels as accurate as on the high end German ECC82's (Siemens, Telefunken, Valvo Hamburg etc.) The Copenhagen version also delivers a slightly more focused bass, which feels incredibly clean and accurate. The stellar performance of square getter and long plates takes all these wonderful sound qualities of this "fairy-tale tube" to a whole new level: instrument separation is super clear, detail retrieval is surreal, and it goes without saying that the extremely low noise on these tubes is to the vanishing point.
Professional Sound Evaluation
The pair 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: Woo Audio WA7 Fireflies (3rd gen) Balanced Headphone Amplifier
- Output: Focal Clear MG Pro open-back headphones
Our full tube sound review was written 100% based on the actual listening experience while this pair of tubes were running in the system described above.
Professional Tube Testing
This set was tested and certified by RoeTest V11 tester with the following result:
Tube 1:
Measured transconductance (GM): 2.07/2.16 mA/V - 94%/98% (100% = 2.20 mA/V)
Measured plate current (IA): 9.212/10.487 mA - 88%/100% (100% = 10.5 mA)
Tube 2:
Measured transconductance (GM): 1.99/2.1 mA/V - 90%/95% (100% = 2.20 mA/V)
Measured plate current (IA): 10.33/9.812 mA - 98%/93% (100% = 10.5 mA)
NO shorts, leakage or gas. NO noise or microphonics.
Curve trace is also included in the original RoeTest report.
Appearance & cosmetic condition
This tube is in pristine condition. Nearly 100% of the paint is intact and well preserved. The Copenhagen factory date code between pins is perfectly visible:
∆6 K6B (∆ = Philips Copenhagen, 6 = 1956, K6B = ECC82)
Packaging
These tubes are packaged in a NEW Valvo reproduction tube box.
