Tube Sound Comparison - Philips VS. Siemens ECC83/12AX7 (50's and 60's)

Hope you enjoy the video as much as I enjoy making it :) Both Philips and Siemens are amazing and have amazing sound, a bit diffierent from each other but both one of the finest vintage production tubes. Subscribe for more!
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[@RRickenbacker]

Rolling tubes is great fun. Thanks for posting!

[@ddzanovski]

I have both tubes and love them both. I’m this demo the Philips combo with Mullard in v3 sounded richer. Great demo and playing 🤘

[@ecc8344]

Hard not to love them both if you have them :) thank you, i appreciate it👍

[@btmybrother]

Siemens came across better They do both sound very good But. The guitar parts pop out more with the Simmons. It’s easier to hear the details. On both clean distorted and with drums. It’s so much easier to hear the little details of each separate guitar with Siemens But realistically, the difference is so small, it could easily come down to v1a simply having more gain on one tube vs the other. Winner to me is Siemens.

[@yaniv-nos-tubes]

i love both tubes especially the siemens 162, but the philips is better for v1 in most guitar amps to my opinion. my favorite v2 and pi tube is mullard i63. in v1 i prefer i61 or longplates. GE 12ax7wa's deserve some love as well amazing for clean tones .thanks for the great content

[@ecc8344]

And thank you for your input! I appreciate it :)

[@skullheadwater9839]

I build tube/valve guitar amps. I think I like the Siemens a little better having more bite and a little more clarity and they remind me of RCA. It is hard to determine exactly over the internet with YT compression. I am in America with mostly vintage American 12AX7 so I have a lot of Sylvania, GE,some Hytron, a few Tung Sol and RCA, I have a few Mullard, E.I. and a couple Amperex. One time I bought an old Phillips Reel to Reel for cheap and was excited that it had ECC83. When I open the package it had one Phillips Miniwatt but had lost vacuum so the getter flash was milky. I was so disgusted and still have not heard one in person. I just got a pair of Phillips ECG STR387 6L6GC that are very nice from a Lowery Organ amp I got. Cheers to you Sir!

[@peteb2]

A valid aspect that offers tangible evidence of the performance from the tubes & so their sound being used here is to see 1st hand evidence of their “plate curves” . This info is provided in the datasheet from the manufacturer but there will be some spread for the actual device. Most tubes are checked for a reading for Amplification Factor & or Transconductance but it doesn’t reveal the spread of performance across multiple bias voltage settings & the range of difference between the two triodes of each tube. It’s interesting to see the curves as this reveals the expected capability of the device & whether the best bias point has been set for it in the circuit being used. I recently purchased a large quantity of Russian ECC83 equivalent tubes via ebay thinking they’d be great for experiments & rolling but by running them on my eTracer tester for their plate curves it revealed very quickly they were very bad probably factory rejects that someone had gathered up & sold to suckers like me… !

[@jordandixon483]

Love it! Great video! I also find it hard to decide which ones sound better to me. Both were great tube manufacturers.

[@lanlycastaneda8217]

Parece una comparación algo difícil. Los dos suenan geniales, los demás es el oido y el gusto de cada cual. Además depende de la musica que escuchemos. Y del equipo y bocinas. Vivo en Berlín por eso tengo la oportunidad de tener todos estos tubo de Siemes y Telefunken en muy buenos precios hasta por 5 euros a veces lo he comprado. Mi opinión es que los dos son ganadores. Muy buen vídeo saludos desde Berlín

[@miguelrichartmellado2834]

Philips i63 sounded brighter to mi than Siemens i62. I have several i62, Mullard, Valvo, Siemens..I have to try on my amp. Thank you frend.

[@gwoodtones]

Thank you for this comparison. It was very helpfull. Do you have a comparison between Siemens and telefunken tubes?

[@ecc8344]

Dont have it yet but good idea for future video :) thanks!

[@peteb2]

Relying on what KZbin's audio codec has done & of course how my computer has un-packed the digital sound portion of the digital feed i have no idea what tubes sound better. This has always been a real problem for anyone making A B comparisons involving anything to do with how something sounds & was a big thing when High Definition Music became a thing & we had higher data rate spec of 16bit/44.1k than that off a music CD.... For myself as a tech of almost 50yrs repairing audio electronics, i'd be using something like a Bode Plot (audio response) of the amp's performance which represents what the amplifier is truly doing without any external influences...

[@chonghangan1768]

Philips tube sound dynamic slightly and musical than Siemen. Siemen sound darker and vielled slightly.

[@zbaby82]

The Philips for clean. Maybe the Siemens for overdrive.

[@danieltambasco528]

Let's say I want to roll some preamp tubes, mostly new production. What would you choose as the most neutral sounding boring tubes to use in all the positions except v1 - so I could really focus on v1 and how that affects tone and performance?

[@yaniv-nos-tubes]

from the modern tubes i prefer tong sol but they are not neutral .just use whatever you've got in all positions except v1. to my opinion in v1 it's worthwhile to experiment with nos at least one vintage mullard and one rca to get an idea about the best guitar tone in different flavors. enjoy!

[@miguelrichartmellado2834]

I don´t have Philips long plates ( well I have one but it's lame 🙁 ) but I do have two Valvo MCP.. I have to try..

[@ecc8344]

Hope I will get that Valvo soon :) Its on my wanted list!

[@miguelrichartmellado2834]

No long plates in V1 ??

[@ecc8344]

Ha! Was thinking about it aswell..maybe next time..another sound comparison reversed to start with long plates in V1 :)

[@airbloomamplifiers]

Ever heard the Genelex Gold Lion B759 or Telefunken EC803s?

[@ecc8344]

I've heard about the famous TFK ECC803s..But i've also heard from my bank that I cant take those big loans of money to afford these 😆

[@bowelripper]

Hello, how do I know which is the V1 position on an amp?

[@ecc8344]

Hi there! V1 is on far right side on every picture and thats the tube used in V1, hope this helps :)

[@bowelripper]

@@ecc8344 Thanks for the answer, but I was thinking about how to know that with any amp, if it's not marked?

[@yaniv-nos-tubes]

@@bowelripper v1 is the first of the small tubes the closest to the input jack

[@miguelrichartmellado2834]

🤔