Cossor valves ride again?

[Argus25]

I have a much more forgiving attitude to these clone valves exploiting logos etc. At least they are there and the factories making them have the working technology to build a vacuum tube (try doing it in your shed).

Just look what happened to the cathode ray tubes for TV & scopes etc, all new production gone. We need to encourage all of these businesses building new valves, buy their stuff.

Probably their profit margins are fairly narrow.

With these enterprises running nearly exact copies of practically any type of valve could be made to a good standard.

I subjected a new Ruby brand 5u4 to exhaustive tests, after I was finished with it I concluded it was every bit as good as RCA's original part, but much more reasonably priced and brand new.

So please be kind to all modern valve makers, wherever they are, support them and try to accept the absurd audiophoolery in this case is actually doing something very useful, keeping vacuum tube technology alive.

The same applies to high voltage capacitors, which would be super expensive and all but gone if not for the audiophile industry.

[snowman_al]

Originally Posted by ITAM805

Could this EL34 with a 'pip' be an EI too?

Exactly that. A lot of valves branded as 'Edicron' are Ei made.

[kalee20]

Originally Posted by turretslug

All the same, a top-pip envelope valve with an IO base just looks wrong, given that the base centre spigot with IO is hollow and traditionally used to accommodate the evacuation stub.

Isn't that the Mazda Octal base though? I've seen MO based valves - and B8G Loctals - with the exhaust tube and pip in the spigot (which is larger in diameter than the IO spigot) but never IO based valves.

The smallness of the IO spigot makes it hard to do this. The pip extends a short distance into the base, but not the spigot, which puts the whole electrode structure higher up. Lead inductances are greater and the valve is less compact than it could all have been.

I haven't seen an IO valve with a pip on the top, but if it allowed the internal gubbins to sit lower down (maybe button-base technology rather than glass pinch), then I'd certainly not worry about a pip on top! After all, B4 based valves usually have the pip in the base, but very early ones have them on top.

[Peter.N.]

I like the original shape, I'm sure they are old enough, I used then to build amps in the '50s along with 6v6's, EL33,s 6L6s and KT 66s when I got better off. To me they sounded as good as any you could buy at the time. I'm sure enthusiasts wouldn't want to go back the quality of those ancient valves.

They gave a very comforting glow those old octal valves.

Peter

Peter

[Cobaltblue]

Originally Posted by ms660

Hey don't knock the rock...I think they look ok, obviously for new build boutique designs so what's the problem

Lawrence.

Got to agree with Lawrence they certainly are not designed to replace the Line and Frame oscillator in my Cossor 916

And as others have said at least someone is making valves.

I feel relaxed about it.

They are a bit outside of my price bracket though.

Cheers

Mike T

[Mr Moose]

Hello,

Plus ca change?

To quote from this page:-
http://www.r-type.org/static/makecoss.htm

"Cossor continued to manufacture and market domestic radio and TV sets for several years after they had abandoned mass-production of consumer valves. They simply bought suitable valves from other manufacturers and branded them with the Cossor label before supplying them in sets or to the trade."

Yours, Richard

[Radio Wrangler]

I don't blame them at all for making them. I'm somewhat amused by the spherical envelope and pip, but they're no sillier than a mock-tudor house or a reproduction Sheraton sideboard.

Anyone who just says they like the shape as decoration is unassailable. To each their own taste.

But please would they refrain from the pseudoscience bit...

David

[kalee20]

I'm all for the fact that someone is making valves!

And if having the pip on top makes for a better vacuum, then again, go for it! It will make a better sound and for longer. Who knows, maybe they make the electrode assembly, fuse it to a glass bulb, fit the base, terminate the leads to the pins, pump it, energise and test it and keep pumping till gas current is below a minimum figure, and THEN seal it? They'd have to have an accessible exhaust tube for that.

Of course, this method wouldn't be much good for making EM34's...

[Lucien Nunes]

I think the point here is not that anything is wrong with the product as such; what is jarring is the discontinuity with the original branding. It's a different valve made by a different company at a different plant. Had it been a faithful replica of a Cossor product, or made on their original tooling, or the work of a new business owned by A.C. Cossor's descendants, or had some such latent connection with ETEL or even EMI, then there would be significance in using the Cossor name. As it is, I think it just detracts from PSVANE building their own reputation. This is a different situation to the original business making economic decisions to buy in valves from other makers.

Actually, there's something else distracting about the print on that valve: Surely '6SN7' as such would mean a metal-envelope version (which did not exist). It has to be at least a 6SN7G-something. -GS for spherical?

[Radio Wrangler]

I wouldn't be surprised if the electrode structures inside aren't simply ones already made and already sold in a more mundane envelope.

There was never a metal 6SN7 because there wasn't a pin they could share with the metal can. I've just dug out a real 6SN7 that was hiding on the bench and it's labelled 6SN7GT on the glass and Raytheon JAN-CRC 6SN7GT VT-231 on the base.

David

[bikerhifinut]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

I wouldn't be surprised if the electrode structures inside aren't simply ones already made and already sold in a more mundane envelope.



David

In one David!
I would think they are aimed as Lwarence said at the "eye" candy end of the audio market and I for one don't mind, much audio I feel at the expensive end is more of a fashion/style statement as much as anything else.
It's a child free zone here at Nut towers and so I am relaxed about seeing my (mostly) homebrewed toob gear out on the rack gently glowing, plus the nervous bit of me likes the idea that the hot bits are out in view so if anything happens I can hit the off switch sharpish! But I can't justify the cost of some of those valves that look like old globe lightbulbs.
Its the prices that make me draw in breath, but its a free world.
As an aside I am perfectly happy to use the cheap chinese, I suspect Shuguang but I could be wrong, valves that RS sell. I can't really tell the difference between a NEW one of those and a new other make, I think a lot of misguided souls are out there buying "NOS" that isnt, probably rejects put back in the box and are listening to a wporn out or faulty device. Cynical? moi?

Andy.

[G6Tanuki]

Brands get repurposed. If the legacy owners of the Cossor brandname get to profit from licensing their trademark, well - I have no issues with this [same goes for Crosley, GPO etc].

"Taylor" is another brand that's recently been reworked for valve/vacuum-tubes; I have fond memories of building a push-pull HF amplifier back in the 1970s using a pair of Taylor T55s.

https://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_t55.html

[Argus25]

I'm pretty sure that the rebranding of valves thing has been going on for 50 years at least. I have some EF50's in "pinnacle" boxes . Looking at them they have been over sprayed with a fairly thick fire engine red coat of paint and been re-labelled, by the general look of things, the aging of the cardboard etc, I would guess in the late '50's 1960's era.

The original EF50's with red paint the red color had a subtle magenta tinge and was a fairly thin coat. Many wartime ones had a crown logo on the side and I think we're made in Canada.

[Radio Wrangler]

Branding has been mucked about with so long that I'm surprised that Joe Punter never seems to have caught on. All those years with PYE workings shoved in a Dynatron badged box. People got quite snobby over them. The worst example ever has to be the Morris 1300, sold also with Riley, Wolseley, Austin, MG and Vanden Plas badges when it was obviously the same thing just with different fluff. At least the Pye-Dynatron thing was internal and not directly seen by the naked eye. How many makes and models did the same TV chassis turn up in? Look at the grot now being flogged with the Goodmans name on it, remember the customer support of those god people in Wembley, and weep.

GPO just makes most Brits think of queueing for hours to get to a counter to pay over the odds for some government monopoly, or being fleeced for one of the most restrictive phone services in the world. I'm not sure how the memories associated with the GPO name are supposed to make me think that brand must be the nicest vinyl renaissance record player.

The branding card has been played so cynically for so long and across so many disparate goods that I'm staggered that it has any pull left.

Even where brands are still in the hands of their original owners, globalisation has moved actual manufacture together. I used to think Panasonic/Matsusushita made better grade TV and VCRs, but doesn't everything from almost all non-Korean brands flow out of the same factory gate in Turkey?

It wouldn't have sutrprised me if that pipped globe had turned out to be a disguise fitted over a complete ECC82 equivalent, still in its B9G bottle with its pins wired to the octal base.
That 'Carbon Black' internal coating would hide it well, but I suppose something has to be seen to glow.

"Headology" Pratchett called it. And he knew a thing or two about humans.

David

[snowman_al]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

I wouldn't be surprised if the electrode structures inside aren't simply ones already made and already sold in a more mundane envelope.

Might be better if they were, there does not look to be much support in there. Oh, they call it a 6SN7-SE by the way...

[snowman_al]

Back to the Cossor branding by Psvane,
Look! you can now get Cossor KT88s, Cossor 300Bs, Cossor 211s and 845s... might be more before the end of the thread.

[Radio Wrangler]

Without much support, maybe the price of fashion is in microphonics?

David

[broadgage]

I wonder if they can manufacture/plan to manufacture the magic eye tuning indicators ?
These components are much in demand and have a more limited life than low power valves.
Might be a demand not just for replacements in vintage equipment, but for the retro look in newly manufactured valve equipment.

I was going to say these (below) would look good in a replica '20's radio, not at $475 a pair though.

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by broadgage

I wonder if they can manufacture/plan to manufacture the magic eye tuning indicators ?

I think the answer lies in whether or not you're prepared to pay $475 per pair for magic eyes.

There have been a few manufacturers of new valves on the go in the past few years, but all of them have only been interested in audiophile valves because that's where the money is.

Valves for RF/IF use and tuning indicators haven't crossed their horizon.

David