Philips

Philips ECC88 6DJ8 Red Tip Select Tubes Matched Pair - Holland 1966/67 - NOS

$164.00 USD

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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: 13,300/14,000 (106%/112%)

Tube 2: 15,100/15,000 (121%/120%)

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 6F3 (delta = Heerlen, Holland, 6 = 1966, F = June, 3 = 3rd week of the month)

delta 7F2 (delta = Heerlen, Holland, 7 = 1967, F = June, 2 = 2nd week of the month)

Packaging

This pair of tubes will be packaged in New white boxes, secured by a handmade paper ribbon (by courtesy of Soundlumia.)