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Old 26th Jan 2005, 10:20 am   #1
nicholasachurchman
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Default Were Mullard the best?

Hi,

I have over the past few years regularly looked on e-bay at valves and the prices they go for, especially the Mullard ones. It not unusual to see a matched quad of EL34 going for £100+

The thing is, were Mullard really any better than the rest? How did they stack up against their contemporaries such as Brimar and Mazda?

Are people looking back through rose coloured glasses with a bit of a romantic view of the good old days when Mullard made the best valves, a bit like how people look back and think how steam trains were better than diesels.

Did Mullard have a sound better than the rest? Do a modern set of EL34s from say Svetlana really sound that much different?

Being born at the end of the 1960s at the end of the valve era I was not around to make any judgments and would be interested to hear what people from more of the valve era thought?

Were Mullard truly better than the rest, or is it just hype?

Regards,

Nick
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Old 26th Jan 2005, 1:24 pm   #2
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

The audiophile market likes certain Mullard valves because it thinks they sound better. Maybe they do, but a good well designed solid state amp will sound better still Actually, it's only particular Mullard designs that fetch the high prices, like the early ECC83s with an mC1 factory code. One reason why Mullard valves are trusted is they were made in a big factory in Blackburn and have factory codes, so you can see exactly when and where they were made. People like Brimar and Mazda sometimes sourced valves from all over the place and the provenance can be difficult to establish.

Philips (who owned Mullard) are also generally well regarded, as are Telefunken.

HTH, Paul
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Old 26th Jan 2005, 7:16 pm   #3
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

A few years ago I was asked to look at a Vox AC30 guitar amplifier which had previously been repaired elsewhere and now had a significant hum.

The previous repairer had added in a couple of extra smoothing caps (rather untidily) and fitted a pair of EL84s originating from China. On a hunch I replaced the new valves with a couple of good used Mullard EL84s, which completely solved the problem. I removed the additional smoothing as it was not needed. The grid coupling caps etc were fine.

So I now view recently manufactured valves with suspicion. I am sure there are some very good ones (probably originating from Russia) as well as the junk ones, but how would we know which is which...
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Old 26th Jan 2005, 9:16 pm   #4
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

Hi

Mullard valves sell for several times more than other brands in the US. You can buy an ECC83 (12AX7) made in China for $6.95 from AES. RCA lists for $36.10 and for Mullard you have to call. Some like Telefunken & Amperex Bugle Boy. To my ears they are all the same..

The only thing I don't like about some European valves is a filament surge at turn on. Some European valves have a bright flash then settle down.

Norm
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Old 26th Jan 2005, 11:15 pm   #5
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

I suppose we like to think that Mullard were one of the best manufacturers. They were around at the very beginning of sound broadcasting and certainly would have had a great deal of experience in valve manufacture by the time radio became established. They had Philips as the main 'backing' so also the resources for design, development and reliability. Mazda and Brimar were also 'big' names. As to whether there was any difference between manufacturers (i.e a Mullard EL84 and a Mazda EL84 well I never noticed anything nor between European manufacturers (Valvo, Telefunken).

I do agree though that 'modern' valves manufactured in China leave a lot to be desired having had personal experience with EL84's like Paul did. I've used some Russian valves as well that seem OK but I have heard some mixed reports of Russian KT66's and EL33 and 34's as being noisey.

As to 'long plate' ECC83's with 'silver getter' sounding better well....if I say what I feel about that I would be chucked off the forum!!


Rich.
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Old 27th Jan 2005, 1:57 am   #6
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

To be honest, the Mullard valves in question were really Philips valves manufactured in the UK. Stanley Mullard sold out fairly early in the day, his name being kept as a front to pacify the BVA and possibly other lobbies. It must have been tricky during the war when Holland was occupied, but money is and always was it's own Country, far transcending mere nationalities.
Mazda descended from Ediswan, but I think all the manufacturers sourced from each other as needs arose. The Hungarian Tungsram company were quite big in their day but the plants now make only light bulbs (not a million miles away from valves)
Given modern technology, the Chinese, Russian & anyone else who cares to invest valves should theoretically be just as good as the old ones. Why they are not is anyones guess.
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Old 27th Jan 2005, 8:50 am   #7
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

Hi,
I measured the noise of some ECC's and EF's and found that some
made in the 50th are better than the later valves.
But the new chineese ECC83 are the very best in low noise.
But definatly not in hum from the heater.
With AC heating they are bad in a preamp.
But if you look at new applications, they use DC heating.
I think that is why they don't think about a hum free heater.

I don't like applications with solid state rects for DC heating.
Some use DC heating and a valve rect for the plate DC
and others have a solid state stabilizer after the for example
5Z4.

What I hate most, audio people found vintage valves now.
( Look at Gerry Wells advert article in the last journal )
They get expensive and you have problems to find them.
My Rembrandt TV uses lots of 5Z4 6SN7. Maybe the chineese
produce them in the future?

If you compare Mullard and Valvo, they look similar. (Philips)
Except some erly valves...

Kind regards
Darius
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Old 29th Jan 2005, 2:10 pm   #8
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

This topic has caused me much anguish.

As a young apprentice during 1961/3 working for a Radio & Television shop in Croydon, I remember attending the enjoyable free Mullard evening road shows. I loved Mullard, they really supported us. However, one of my many jobs as a junior, involved collecting the months faulty valves of Mullard manufacture and preparing them for return to Beddington under warranty.

Various types of support equipment and unique methods were used to turn these old duff valves into a physical state so that a claim could be made. Items such as toothbrushes, paste, polishing cloths and exhailed moist air were used to magically remove many months of usage. I think the success rate on returns was around 20%-30%.

The fact that many service departments throughout the country were carrying on with this ( Acceptable?, Unacceptable?, Turn a blind eye?, It's par for the course? Get one over Mullard?) procedure, fills my heart with sadness.

I have to say that my boss told me to do it!!

Was there an inspector at Mullards who enjoyed the challenge and gave me credit when it was due? or did he just pick a number from a hat for the returns. I blooming well hope that he didn't have a AVO MK1/2/3. Perhaps he is reading this post!

Did I & others on this forum cause the early demise of Mullard, will I ever know?, Should I have told my Mum & Dad?

Is there anyone who can say anything that will make me love myself and help me hold my head up high again.

You have all brought the past flooding back and now I've got to live with it.

So many questions. Time for a sit down I think.

Regards,

Roger

PS,
What did you do when the RadioSpares rep turned up.? I had a load of individual round dropper sections all gleaming, waiting for return under warranty. I was a mean mains dropper technician!!!.

Perhaps a new forum thread?

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Old 29th Jan 2005, 3:13 pm   #9
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

Quote:
Originally Posted by roger_a
Did I & others on this forum cause the early demise of Mullard, will I ever know?, Should I have told my Mum & Dad?

Is there anyone who can say anything that will make me love myself and help me hold my head up high again.
I don't think Mullard were so daft.

They will have had good information on infant mortality rates and modes from their lab testing and from large customers like manufacturers and the services. The large customers would have found it easy to assess the quality of what they were buying. A TV manufacturer would certainly have known all about it if they were having a large number of guarantee claims because of a duff batch of valves. Manufacturers can't afford to offend really big individual accounts. It's not unknown for them to ship their top drawer product to OEMs and sell the rest through the retail trade, where it has to be really bad to create a problem for them.

There will have been someone in charge of returns doing a balancing act between being totally hard-nosed and making a nonsense of their reputation for being a quality supplier with a no-quibble guarantee (and their premium pricing), and being such a soft touch that he gave the profits away. Of course the unit profits are also higher with product sold retail, hence the nice Mullard Evenings.

Mullard was part of Philips, and became largely a brand of Philips. Philips had its own upheavals later on, and the brand faded away. Maybe it was too much associated with valves, which were 'old hat', rather than semiconductors?

Anyway, I doubt that your naughtiness made an iota of difference to the decline of Mullard.

Pete.
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Old 29th Jan 2005, 5:40 pm   #10
nicholasachurchman
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

Quote:
Originally Posted by roger_a
PS,
What did you do when the RadioSpares rep turned up.? I had a load of individual round dropper sections all gleaming, waiting for return under warranty. I was a mean mains dropper technician!!!.
Nothing has changed I can assure you! I see plenty of returns at RS where engineers have tried to get credit for items which are of dubious origins. They seem to get away with it sometimes! Technology may have moved on in leaps and bounds, but the RS (or should I say Radio Spares) customer seems to stay the same!!

Back to my original point though, as Mulard seemed to be pushing themselves as the superior product were they generally more expensive than Mazda, Brimar, etc?

Roger also talks of preparing returns to Mullard. On average were there more failures of other makes? Was the Mullard offering any better?

Regards,

Nick
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Old 1st Feb 2005, 1:25 am   #11
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

On the television side of things the Mullard valves and cathode ray tubes were always considered to be the best. Always more expensive but far few failure rates. Their Line output valves for colour tv's (PL519 & PY500A) were far superior to all other brandes. In fact even the rental side of Thorn Consumer Electronics turned their back on their own Mazda valves in favour of Mullard valves.
We use to fit a lot of regunned colour tubes and again it was the Mullard rebuilds that had the best reputation. The next one down (but by a long way) was Mazda or Thorn New life tubes which use to suffer severe and sometimes damaging flashovers for the first few weeks of it's life.
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Old 1st Feb 2005, 9:51 am   #12
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

In the book "The Set Makers" it mentions Pye's V4 telly being fitted with one of two CRT manufacturers. Those that were fitted with Mullard were sent to those dealers who Pye considered up-market, with the, er, lower orders getting V4's with CRTs by Cathodean (a Pye subsidiary). So, clearly Pye thought Mullard were best.

I've also heard several people say that the Mazda CRT's don't last as well as Mullard ones. Also of the perhaps half dozen early 50's GEC TV's I've seen or heard about not one has it's original CRT without gas in it !

There are also a number of sets from the mid-50's where the set uses a largely Mazda line-up except for a couple of bottles which were Mullard.

Looking through period literature Mullard were usually the ones to introduce new valves with other manufacturers following later with a "me too" design.

So to me it seems Mullard must have been the best, at least as far as the UK market was concerened. Wonder how other foreign brands compare ? (Telefunken spring to mind).

TTFN,
Jon
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Old 1st Feb 2005, 12:26 pm   #13
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

It would be interesting to know which manufacturer made the tubes with the most heater - cathode shorts. I would think that the Mullard tubes were probably OK but maybe the Mazda ones were more prone to this problem. My Ekco TS188 has the familiar filament transformer mounted in the bottom of the cabinet. I also had a Heathkit 'scope once that had a GEC 5" tube, the heater in this was also driven separately following a short.
Neil
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Old 1st Feb 2005, 1:31 pm   #14
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Default Re: Were Mullard the best?

So, it would seem that on the whole the reputation that Mullard still seem to have today of making a superior product is justified.

I suppose being a Philips owned company money for R&D work was readily available allowing the products to be throughly developed.

Also, I was recently given a video, which was transfered from cine film of a promotional film made by Mullard showing the production of valves.

I would say looking at the film it must date from the 1950 and was probably filmed at the Blackburn factory.

Two things stand out in the film. Firstly, the number of people working there. It shows rooms of people producing product. While there is some mechanisation, all operations seem to have human input. The only modern pictures which I have seen looking like this are of factories operating in china. The film serves as a good example of social history as well of valve production.

The second thing is that they made everything. Tungsten wire used for the heaters for example is made in the plant from the raw material, there is no buying it in from another supplier. This must have given Mullard the ability to closely control the quality of their materials used in valve production. This may have aided the quality of the product produced.

I don't know how the competitors compared.

Nick
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