billerb1
Headphoneus Supremus
Ah shucks Bill! . Glad to help a fellow worshipper of the Holy Tube!
Congrats on the incoming tubes!!!
Just waiting on one...the match to the 1956 Heerlen Valvo CCa E88CC PW that I already have.
Hey Eric, welcome to the Pinched Waist club. Hope the pair is treating you well.
Here's the Brent Jessee take on the very rare Holland Valvo CCa Pinched Waist tubes (mid-paragraph to end):
Cca:
Whew, these babies are so scarce there isn't even much info out there about them! Mentioned by audiophiles, usually in a reverent whisper, these gold pinned gems are about as good is it gets in 6DJ8-land. Matched triode sections, low noise screening, 10,000 hr. heater life expectancy, carefully controlled frame grid winding, low microphonics......the list goes on and on. This is regarded as one of the most detailed and three-dimensional sounding tube ever made in this family of tubes. Most of what is available is Siemens or Telefunken made, although there are a few very rare examples of Philips or Amperex Holland made out there. Since this was a tube made specifically for the German goverment and military, all that I have seen carry a German brand label, even those made in Holland. Even rarer are the Holland made Cca tubes with the pinched waist indented glass midsections, said to be the most sonically "3D" tube ever made, of any type. Finding these is akin to finding a 1795 gold piece in your attic! I don't believe there were any of these Cca tubes made in the USA. Awesome audiophile tubes! Yes, they are costly, but like most top flight NOS audio tubes, you get what you pay for. These Cca tubes will give you more improvement in sound than upgrades like expensive speaker cables that can cost 5 times as much as a pair of Cca tubes!