Category Archives: 12au7/ECC82

Reviews of 12au7/ECC82 vacuum tubes and equivalents

Mazda 12au7 Gray Plates

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Mazda 12au7 Gray Plates
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (12 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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“… having a wonderful 3D sense of space and it does!! The stage seems larger than
life. The only flaw it might have would be on bright systems it tends
to have a happy high end, but I can live with it.” Read

“Beautiful punch/dynamics, with the leading edge of the Telefunken’s without the “etch”. The body of the harmonic is not quite as full as the long plate Mullard’s/Amperex’s but more body then the Telefunken’s. “ Read

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Bottlehead Crack headphone amplifier

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Bottlehead Crack headphone amplifier

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (13 votes, average: 4.08 out of 5)
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I had my eyes on Crack for quite some time. I’m going though phases of getting different types of tube amp -PP, SET, Hybrid, OTL – and comparing them to one anoher. Now it was time for OTL (Output Transformer Less) and based on my research one of the best representatives of the OTL amplifiers is Bottlehead Crack (price $279).

Crack comes in form of a kit or the company can put it together for you. I decided to go DIY route – it’s much more fun like that and I would be more familiar with internal structure of the amp that way. It took me 2 weeks to get the package in the mail – Eileen from Bottlehead was very helpful and responsive – kudos to the company that not only provides a well regarded product, but also has great people working there.

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