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Modern Brimar tubes

C

charzoom

New Member
A simple search on Google shows up the UK Brimar website selling modern Brimar tubes.
I know vintage Brimar 12au7 is a good alternative to Millard and maybe Telefunken ones, but what about modern Brimars?
Do modern Brimar tubes live up to their glories in the past?
 
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These folks have evidently been refurbishing the old Brimar production facilities with the intent to start manufacturing tubes in Great Britain again. For now, looks like they are now outsourcing/selecting Brimar-branded tubes from non-Russian sources, one supposes JJ and/or Chinese. A pretty good line up of types, in any case.

As to past glories, my research indicated the brand was well thought of. At the end of their run, they started producing the EL506, which was a drop in for the 7868. You could obtain these for a while and I used quads of these in Fisher and Sherwood amps to very good effect. Alas, they are no longer to be found anywhere that I can find I also recall reading that their signal tubes, esp the 12AX7, were well thought of.

We'll see if they get their project to self-manufacturing off the ground. Looks like they have made progress and if they're successful, it would be very good to have another source of new production tubes if the quality is there.
 
BRIMAR stood for BRitish Made American Radio tubes, and originally made a line of US tubes in Britain, such as the 807, 6V6, 6L6G, etc. They also made copies of European tubes, and some very innovative tubes. Later on they relabeled Soviet tubes and perhaps lost some of their reputation, but most every tube company did the same thing during the decline period of tube tech.

I have a Brimar tube manual a UK friend sent me years ago, and it's got some interesting circuits in it.

If the new owners of the company are able to make an ECC83, and EL34 and a GZ34 of acceptable quality in the UK, it would be amazing!
 
maxhifi said:
BRIMAR stood for BRitish Made American Radio tubes, and originally made a line of US tubes in Britain, such as the 807, 6V6, 6L6G, etc. They also made copies of European tubes, and some very innovative tubes. Later on they relabeled Soviet tubes and perhaps lost some of their reputation, but most every tube company did the same thing during the decline period of tube tech.

I have a Brimar tube manual a UK friend sent me years ago, and it's got some interesting circuits in it.

If the new owners of the company are able to make an ECC83, and EL34 and a GZ34 of acceptable quality in the UK, it would be amazing!
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Yes, they were originally licensed to make US patent pend tubes.

Hasn't this new Brimar tube production been in the air, for years? Other sites have been posting this news for quite a while, now.
 
maxhifi said:
I think making tubes in a western country is not easy, because every time someone gets close it seems to fizzle out.
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Much more is required than simply having a mechanical production line. I suspect the refined materials needed for the elements are much more difficult and costly to source now, and the economies of scale are gone.

Jack
 
TriodeLuvr said:
Much more is required than simply having a mechanical production line. I suspect the refined materials needed for the elements are much more difficult and costly to source now, and the economies of scale are gone.

Jack
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Yep. The whole supply chain is gone. Cathode material, grid wire, glass bases, getters.. It's gone and it's not coming back. I'm pretty sure we can still make cardboard boxes.
 
gadget73 said:
likely also issues with safe handling of the raw materials. Most of the stuff in tubes isn't exactly considered a health supplement.
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The UK has some crazy safety regulations along with a lot of other handling and storage regs. Just watch Jeremy Clarkson's show about him trying to farm his own land, raise live stock and open a small farm to fork restaurant and produce store on his property. I would bet there are a lot of hurdles and hoops to jump through having to use some of the materials to make tubes.
 
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