World Design Pre2 pre-amp - Review / Blog

[Marco]

Nice one. Let us know how you get on

Marco.

[Ali Tait]

Hi Jerry,
Yes a reputable company like Langrex will be fine,though may cost a little more.The problem on ebay is the many unscrupulous people who rebrand valves and sell stuff as NOS when it is no such thing.To know something is genuine,you need to know the internal structure of the valve in the year it's claimed to be.A lot of stuff is touted as,say,40's or 50's NOS when it is much newer than that.A good thing about Telefunken for instance is that they were all manufactured with a "<>" stamped into the glass on the base,so it's easy to tell the genuine article.Obviously the usual applies as far as ebay sales are concerned-be suspicious of auctions that don't have good quality close-up photos of the valves,so you can have a good look!

[jandl100]

I've been doing a bit of tube rolling over the last week or so ....

The pre-amp takes a single ecc88 as standard, a Wammer kindly loaned me a vintage Mullard - I almost always like Mullards, but not this time and/or in this circuit! Analytical to a fault - simply laid bare all of a recording's multi-mike trickery. There is such a thing as too much information after all!

Then an eBay search for ecc88 turned up a pcc88 (7DJ8 - a 7 volt version of the 6 volt ecc88/6DJ8). A bit of Googling turned up some comments on the US Upscale Audio site saying that pcc88 is usually (but perhaps not always) a drop in replacement for an ecc88 and is worth trying. The eBay valve was advertised as a Telefunken, but once it had been won, paid for and delivered it turned out not to have the Telefunken diamond on the base, so almost certainly a fake. Nonetheless it sounded absolutely fab - the best the pre-amp had sounded.

Then a yellow print Mullard ecc88 from Langrex. Yes, much better than the white print one I tried, but not quite up to the excellent standard of the fake Telefunken pcc88.

I'm now trying a Tesla pcc88 from Colomor. Yes! - even better than the "Telefunken" pcc88.

I'd strongly recommend anyone with an amp using ecc88 valves to try the pcc88 version as a direct replacement. They just seem to sound better!

[Spectral Morn]

Very interesting Jerry

I wonder if the pcc88 would work in a Bat VK3i pre I am playing with at the moment. It uses 6922 which is an EEC88....ummmm. It also uses a pair of 6V6's as regulators.

I have some yellow label Mullards and White as well, but to be honest I am not that impressed with them. Everyone mostly raves about them. My Dad was/still is a ham/amateur radio user, and these date from when he used valve rigs. So date from the mid/late 50's to early 60's. I got his box of valves. Most used but some not, still in wrapping paper and boxes.


Regards D S D L