April 5, 2013
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Philips Miniwatt SQ E182CC/7119
The subject of today’s review is a pair of Philips Miniwatt SQ E182CC/7119 used in my Modwright/Music Hall CD-25 disc player. The tubes were made in the Heerlen plant in the 4th and 5th weeks of July, 1963 (ID3 Δ3G4 and Δ3G5). The 7119s have laddered grey plates, a large halo getter ring and copper posts. They were purchased on May 11, 2006 from an E-bay auction for $31 and were NIB (new in original box). Tubes of this manufacture can still be found from online vendors and at auction.
Review Pair Closer View
Large Halo Ring Getter Copper Posts
Date Code (1) Date Code (2)
The subject tubes replaced a pair of IBM-labelled GE 7044 tubes and much of the notes concerning their sound are in comparison to them.
Listening Impressions
- Leading edge transients when listening to Narada Collection #3 are not quite as sharp.
- The oboe in the track Homeland from the cited Narada album is beautiful – with rich overtones.
- Reference-level sound stage width populated by larger images spread widely. Depth and height as evidenced on the Time Out CD is very good to excellent.
- Percussion is excellent and borderline reference-level.
- When listening to the Breathless CD, by Kenny G, you can hear the breathy reedlike quality to the saxophone.
- Bass lines on the eponymous Fourplay album is reasonably taut but not the best I’ve heard this CD sound.
- Inner detail/timbre is as good as it gets on my system. On A Shout Towards Noon by Leo Kottke, it’s sometimes quite obvious that he’s playing a 12-string, hollow body guitar.
I’ve commented previously that I find the Philips/Amperex 7119 tubes to be the Goldilocks in this family. Not quite the sound staging ability of the 5687 variant exemplified by Tung-Sol and not quite the absolute detail of the 7044 type, but it manages to capture most of both. Very much recommended.
N.B.: This review is compiled from listening notes when both the Premier 16LS2 preamplifier and Premier 140 amplifier by conrad-johnson were part of my system. Tubes used in the 16LS2 were six Telefunken (made by Siemens) PCC88/7DJ8 and the Premier 140 was running a Telefunken PCC88/7DJ8 input tube, a pair of Sovtek 6H30π-EB phase splitters, and eight vintage Genalex Gold Lion KT88s.
