V1 Tube Comparison

tekbow

@ICBM

Give the second vid a listen, maybe put it down to my bad recording. There's nothing wrong with that Mullard, It's a tested NOS valve. My amp guy installed it along with the I61 in V1 when he serviced my amp.

A couple times I've posted this on FB groups i'm in, people have gone for V5 blind half the time.

FWIW, Mullards aren't actually my favourite. I prefer RFT's and Heerlen Philips/Amperex ECC83's. The Mullards are about even with the Brimars for me.

ICBM

tekbow said:

@ICBM

Give the second vid a listen, maybe put it down to my bad recording. There's nothing wrong with that Mullard, It's a tested NOS valve. My amp guy installed it along with the I61 in V1 when he serviced my amp.

There's no way it should be muddier than every other valve there, tested NOS or not. It's noticeably duller than the other one too. You asked if one could be considered objectively 'bad', and that one is.

It's not that I'm a Mullard fan - to me they are over-hyped and no better than any of the other similar types like Brimars. I also generally like RFTs best, so it was slightly surprising that it didn't sound that great there, but it wasn't positively bad.

To be honest I'm surprised I liked the Harma, because I generally don't when I've used them, but it did jump out to me as having a much better top-end sparkle than the others on the clean sound.

Modulus_Amps

Oh well, bummer, Guess I will never buy any of those valves, I don't have time to faff around with NOS unless customer supplied