Philips
Philips ECC88 6DJ8 Preamp Tubes Matched Pair - Holland 1964 - Same code - NOS
Philips ECC88 6DJ8 Preamp Tubes Matched Pair - Holland 1964 - Same code - NOS
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$96.00 USD
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Perfectly matched & balanced pair of vintage Philips ECC88 6DJ8 audio tubes - NOS - Heerlen, 1963 - Same date code - Very Rare
Sound qualities
What a great decade for the legendary Heerlen tubes! You get the "textbook" Philips/Amperex Holland midrange presentation that is transparent, natural and expansive, with a slight touch of warmth that illuminates your musical world. The top end is super airy, smooth and nicely extended like one would expect from the best Siemens tubes. Vocals are intimate, sweet and forward (but not right in your face) and that always reminds me how the vocals sound on the best Mullard tubes. Bass is deep and well controlled and the accuracy feels very similar to the high end German ECC88's (Siemens, Telefunken.)
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: Liquid Platinum Tube Amplifier by Alex Cavalli
- 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
Both tubes tested Strong NOS (110%+ nominal mutual conductance) on a Mercury 2000 tube tester with the following result (mutual conductance both in uMhos and in percentage of nominal):
Tube 1: 14,000/14,200(112%/114%)
Tube 2: 14,000/14,000(112%/112%)
Good tubes start at 7000 and new tubes (incl. NOS/NIB) 12,500 - 13,000, and the Mercury 2000's rated mutual conductance (nominal) for new tubes is 12,500. 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 stronger.
Appearance & cosmetic condition
We treasure this pair for its near pristine cosmetic condition - nearly 100% of the paint is well preserved. The identical date code of Heerlen factory etched on glass is also perfectly visible on both tubes: delta 4B1 (delta = Heerlen, Holland, 4 = 1964, B = February, 1 = the 1st week of the month.)