In our quest for EH90 tubes we are now going "down under" to Australia:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-X-EH90-MULLARD-NOS-TUBES-/310719643962?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item485855813a
According to the vendor, these tubes are [size=10pt]
Mullard tubes ( nos ) made in Australia ( C-codes ) = Hendon Works, Alberton, Australia[/size]
Does anybody have any experience with these tubes?
My 6AK5 odyssey started when I ordered Mullard look alike tubes, including the plastic pin protector, that looked exactly like the Mullard CV4010. Thought that I got real Mullard tubes at a bargain. Turned out that they were made by Amalgamated of Sydney, Australia. They did not sound good.
Here are some snippets of Australian tube manufacturing history, just as convoluted as the European Phillips saga: If you don't have the patience to read through it, the most significant findings are 1) that the cathode assemblies were manufactured in Blackburn and shipped to Australia; the AU factory did not even have the facilities to manufacture them. Thus, "the classic Mullard sound."
2) A lot of tubes for Australian use were manufactured by the Yugoslavian factory Ei.
What goes around comes around.....
by
JeffWest on Sat Dec 04, 2004 1:46 pm
There were at least three major operations producing valves in Australia, dating back to the '20s. One was Amalgamated Wireless Australasia, LTD (AWA), quite famous in vintage radio circles I'm told, which formed the Amalgamated Wireless Valve Company (AWV!) and sold tubes under the Super Radiotron brand. Philips decided to manufacture there (Australia) before WWII and had a factory in New South Wales, but right after the war moved production to the Hendon factory in South Australia. The Philips factory code for Hendon is the "C" you noticed on one of those tubes, like Adrian said. The Stokes book implies they were making 12AX7s there by 1958, and I think I recall seeing longplates w/"C" codes, not positive, most you encounter are 15mm that look like British or Dutch. I've got a couple of the latter around here somewhere, w/"C" codes and labelled "Miniwatt". As I recall, they sound pretty good, like other Philips.
For those who might have Australian CV versions, the factory code for Hendon Works in that case is "PDA" (like "Z" for Hammersmith on CV coded KT66s, etc).
All the Australian tube factories had ceased production by the mid '70s.
"I6_" is Philips type code for ECC83/12AX7 from very late '50s through '70s. The last digit isn't necessarily chronological, e.g., I65 appeared on Dutch years before I63 on British, etc. I don't remember the full type code on the Australian Miniwatts I've got, should check.
Nice to have a bit of history with the valves
I was talking to a retired radio repairer
seem to think when production stopped the machines were dismantled and never re-sold.so nobody else could manufacture them .Sounds like an urban myth but who knows?
Today's secret revealed - the valves made in the Alberton factory used cathode assemblies made in Blackburn, Lancashire, and transported around the world to Australia.
Tungsram developed a way to transport cathode assemblies from Hungary to GB before WWII, so that they could make valves without giving the "special recipe" to foreigners. During WWII the Tungsram Edmonton (Tottenham) factory was used by Mullard, and the technology came into their control. After the war, Mullard used the Tungsram method to send cathode assemblies to Hendon, Alberton, West Adelaide (call it what you like, only one factory).
Today's secret revealed - the valves made in the Alberton factory used cathode assemblies made in Blackburn, Lancashire, and transported around the world to Australia.
The Hendon works had no facilities for coating cathodes. All Philips group valves produced in Oz used European cathode assemblies (all from Blackburn, as far as I know, but I'm hedging my bets). That is why they have that classic sound
I was aware of the British Tungsram importation of Hungarian parts, it helped keep them out of BVA secondary to the argument that they weren't really offering fully "British made" valves. I believe Dutch Philips took over British Tungsram by 1952 and put Mullard in charge of managing it as of late that year.
From my sometimes defective memory, Philips production of the ECC82 and ECC83 began around the middle of 1953, with the ECC81 first being produced 10 months earlier. I don't know much more, I picked that up from old advertising material, and it might have been 54, not 53. LOL I couldn't even speak then, it was a long time ago!
I have some old Australian-sourced Miniwatt ECC83 that were made in the Yugoslavian Ei factory. The ones I have appear to be real 50s vintage, but there are a lot of copies about, also made by Ei but much later, with all sorts of names on them (I have a couple marked "Siemens", and some more marked "Mazda"). The Ei factory Philips code is a circle, broken at the bottom, with a blob in the centre, and the codes are a character shorter than usual. I have been told that a lot of Philips group valves supplied to Australia in the 50s were made by Ei.
