Strovachek Posted July 26 Share Posted July 26 Hi, My question is, what do you know about the Australian made Philips Miniwatt 12au7A? (Please see the attached picture!) Many people say it is equivalent, or rather same as the Mullard 12au7, made in Blackburn, England. What I discovered so far, Philips bought Mullard and set up a factory here in HENDON WORKS, ALBERTON AUSTRALIA, which was a Mullard satellite factory. Shipping and using the English, Mullard machinery to Adelaide and manufacture these Miniwatt tubes here. Furthermore Mullard made the cathode assemblies using the Hungarian Tunsgram method and sent them from the Blackburn factory to Australia, because the Hendon Works had no facilities for coating cathodes. I've heard this from an old radio technician who was working in Hendon Works, before it was closed down. Maybe it is only an anecdote? Thank you. Kind regards, Bela Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcusD Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 They are pretty good, but not up to the UK mullard performance, but still way better than most current production tubes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strovachek Posted July 27 Author Share Posted July 27 Hi MarcusD, I have two of them, have not listened to their sound jet properly. I rolled them in to my Sphinx 3 instead of the stock JJ-s, but they were soundig a little bit dull, and not enough treble. I changed them after few hours to the Russian, current production Genalex Gold and the treble came back. Maybe the Philips needs some burn in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcusD Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 17 minutes ago, Strovachek said: Hi MarcusD, I have two of them, have not listened to their sound jet properly. I rolled them in to my Sphinx 3 instead of the stock JJ-s, but they were soundig a little bit dull, and not enough treble. I changed them after few hours to the Russian, current production Genalex Gold and the treble came back. Maybe the Philips needs some burn in? Maybe, but NOS valves tend to be a bit darker sounding (especially if they have mullard DNA), maybe leave them in for a couple of days and see if they grow on you, maybe the highs are still there but more cultured. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xlr8or Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 On 26/07/2023 at 12:56 PM, Strovachek said: Hi, My question is, what do you know about the Australian made Philips Miniwatt 12au7A? (Please see the attached picture!) Many people say it is equivalent, or rather same as the Mullard 12au7, made in Blackburn, England. What I discovered so far, Philips bought Mullard and set up a factory here in HENDON WORKS, ALBERTON AUSTRALIA, which was a Mullard satellite factory. Shipping and using the English, Mullard machinery to Adelaide and manufacture these Miniwatt tubes here. Furthermore Mullard made the cathode assemblies using the Hungarian Tunsgram method and sent them from the Blackburn factory to Australia, because the Hendon Works had no facilities for coating cathodes. I've heard this from an old radio technician who was working in Hendon Works, before it was closed down. Maybe it is only an anecdote? Thank you. Kind regards, Bela The tube you have pictured there was made by Matsushita in Japan in the 1960's and imported into AU and relabelled as a Philips or Miniwatt 12AU7A. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xlr8or Posted July 27 Share Posted July 27 On 26/07/2023 at 12:56 PM, Strovachek said: What I discovered so far, Philips bought Mullard and set up a factory here in HENDON WORKS, ALBERTON AUSTRALIA, which was a Mullard satellite factory. Shipping and using the English, Mullard machinery to Adelaide and manufacture these Miniwatt tubes here. Furthermore Mullard made the cathode assemblies using the Hungarian Tunsgram method and sent them from the Blackburn factory to Australia, because the Hendon Works had no facilities for coating cathodes. I've heard this from an old radio technician who was working in Hendon Works, before it was closed down. I can confirm this information is correct. The thing to be mindful of though is the Blackburn machinery at the time (mid 1960's) was fully automated and made its way not only to Hendon Works in SA but also to Matsushita in Japan. Ei in Niš Yugoslavia acquired the left over machinery from Matsushita. The Hendon Works machinery was dumped. Give the 12AU7A's around 150h to burn-in fully before assessing their tonal characteristics. They've been dormant for some 60+ years and need this cycle to build up the correct ionisation levels for the cathode emitter. The vacuum pressure will also steadily increase each time you undertake this thermal conditioning cycle. Also, allow 90+ minutes in before evaluating the tube's sound signature. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strovachek Posted July 27 Author Share Posted July 27 Thanks for your reply. I will give them a go. Yes, the person I was talking to was working there and he told me a story about Hendon Works. When they finally closed down the factory in 1980, all machinery went to the smelters. It was a silly decision. Just look at the Russians, using the new tube revolution! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattyW Posted September 22 Share Posted September 22 On 27/7/2023 at 11:31 PM, xlr8or said: The tube you have pictured there was made by Matsushita in Japan in the 1960's and imported into AU and relabelled as a Philips or Miniwatt 12AU7A. Still the Matsushita tubes are quite nice sounding and as I understand it were built using Philips tooling when Philips stopped manufacturing in the Uk, much as Ei used Telefunken tooling shipped to Yugoslavia (or whatever it’s called nowadays) when Telefunken stopped making tubes in Germany….. Course then the US blew it to bits in some war or another but what can you do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strovachek Posted October 22 Author Share Posted October 22 The Philips Miniwatt 12au7 tubes are sounding now much better than the current Russian production 12au7 tubes. Although the Genalex Gold Lion and the Electro-Harmonix tubes are very close in tonal characters. The Miniwatts started producing a very balanced sound range and stage after about 200 hours working in the Sphinx3. In my opinion a lot depends on the speakers too. I have a pair of Counterpoints T128 25 Anniversary. Two way, bass reflex speakers, designed and built by Audiophile in Melbourne. Sweet sounding, fast boxes in every category of music. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkaramazov Posted October 22 Share Posted October 22 I run some Australian Philips Miniwatt 12au7 tubes at present in my preamplifier. Lovely sounding valves. I had British Mullards in the preamplifier beforehand, and they did not sound that different. Big fan of Australian made tubes. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strovachek Posted October 22 Author Share Posted October 22 Hi mkaramazov, These tubes made on the "legendary" Mullard developed machinery line, wherever they shipped them. (Australia, Japan, and elsewhere.) The machinery, therefore the quality stayed the same or very close as they were in England, Holland with English made Mullards. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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