For de som ikke gidder å lese. Her er konklusjonene.
Editor’s Final Note
I can’t help but wonder if New Sensor purchased the trademark of Mullard merely for brand marketing purposes with no real intention of creating an authentic reproduction or reissue of the original ECC83. It saddens me that they have missed a fantastic opportunity to honor Mullard’s glorious name and legacy – all the people, the engineers, scientists, chemists, draftsmen, technicans and staff who worked to make fine-quality vacuum tubes over the decades. Mullard was a great British Company, a manufacturer and also a research institution that was constantly endeavouring to improve and develop vacuum tube technology. I feel this is what is lacking today in modern tube manufacture – the will to push forward, to improve and achieve the absolute best in terms of materials and design ethos. I’m sure I’m not the only guitar player that’s disappointed and disenchanted. I would love to see genuine good quality reproductions of Mullard tubes with some heritage being made again. Until a tube manufacturer realises this there will be no substitute for 1963 technology.
Conclusion
The noise figures, matching and gain of the New Sensor ‘reissue’ 12AX7 are certainly adequate for purpose, that is being used in a guitar amp, it’s a good tube, but it isn’t a Mullard ECC83. The Mullard is a superior device from a bygone era when tubes were manufactured not only for audio but for use in other, more demanding applications such as ruggedised military gear and laboratory instrumentation. From the test results it seems reasonable to conclude that the ‘reissue’ is just a graded Sovtek 12AX7LPS, however a full and detailed dissection of both tubes would be required to absolutely confirm this. There’s nothing unethical with grading and paying additional coin for what appears to be a premium Sovtek 12AX7LPS. In fact, I’d think more highly of New Sensor if they stood by their own brand name and marketed this tube as a premium Sovtek 12AX7LPS rather than using the Mullard’s logo to distance themselves from their Russian roots—the association with Mullard is just plain wrong in my opinion. There’s no heritage, no link at all with the engineering expertise and no use of the original tooling or materials.
It unfortunate that tube manufacturers don’t target their efforts on making a sublime, genuine contribution to the state of the art of tube design and construction rather than just rebranding their tubes under the name of once great companies. As a builder of tube gear I like to know what I’m buying—Effectrode buys quite a few tubes and it’s really important for me to be able to obtain good quality parts to continue building our effects pedals. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to see