rjgtr wrote:Yes the fake Mullards have a ladder plate, but it isn't exactly the same as the similar plate structured real Mullard I have that I compared them to. There's other details of the plate structures between the fake and real Mullards that are different, like the two open rectangles a side on the edge of the real Mullard's plate that are missing on the fake one. The GT's plate structure is very very close.
So I did a side by side listening test just now to be able to respond as accurately as I could. Of course this is subjective.
The real Mullard has a balance and openness that is un-matched by any new production. The low mids are clear and punchy. The high end is smooth.
The GT Mullard is close in overall tone to the real Mullard with a slightly harsher high end and not quite the firmness in the low mids. Not as three dimensional.
The NS fake Mullard sounds good, but isn't as even sounding as the real Mullard. There's an emphasis on the low end, which isn't objectionable, but not like the real Mullard. There's a slight cloudiness to the low mids that most of the Sovtek tubes have (the NS Tungsol seems to have a lot less of this issue).
Thanks Richard, you saved me having to do the A/B test myself, next time I got some NS "Mullards" in.
I can't say I noticed the low emphasis or cloudiness with the fake Mullards that you mentioned. Going from memory, to me they seemed to have a slight high end emphasis compared to the real Mullards, which was however still sweet and smooth - not harsh at all. I had also noticed the slight difference in the way the two halves of the anodes are joined, but I doubt that it would be significant, since the seems aren't involved in the flow of the electron space charge. After all the reports of reliability problems with GT's 12AX7Ms, I never bothered trying those.
