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Preamp 6922 tube help

So my favorite tubes out of all the ones I've tried are early 1960 Siemens CCA, i find them to have an exteremely clean sound, fuller flat, tight bass, great imaging, just everything you would want. But because my system is on the neutral, the CCA has tipped it to the brighter side because of the "sparkle". I was wondering if anyone had another recommendation for tubes that perform like the Siemens, with its sense of realism but without the brightness in my system. 

Here are the tubes I've tried 


Telefunken E88CC ULM - clean tubes but the bass is too rounded out.
Mullard E188CC - too warm, way too warm
Voskhod Singlewire - great tubes but just didn't feel like didn't have any characteristics
Reflektor Single Wire - seems like the mids were a bit warm, but very nice tubes, but i would always rotate them out after a period because they didn't feel too accurate, but very sweet. 
Amperex - Forgot which ones but the highs and lows were rolled off. 
Electro Harmonix 6922 - has a basic tube sound to them on the warm side of things. 






thewatcher101
don_c55
1,025 posts
 
Totally avoid Russian variants they are all dry and cold! Go NOS!

Sample and judge for yourself.

Upscale is a good source. The owner is sometimes prickly to deal with IMO.

Another good source is tubeworld.com - Talk to the owner - he has common sense, is honest, and gives great advice. lots of hard to find NOS tubes. good, easy to use website
fischer3966's avatar
fischer3966
28 posts
 
I've tried a lot as well, and the based on my personal taste (detailed, yet fuller midrange with great extension and clarity) were the early 1960s USA white label Amperex 7308s.  I've got an extra pair if you're interested and can provide the specs.  The Holland Amperex 6922/7308 is extremely warm and rich, and the extremely rolled off.  Best of luck.  Though some say the orange and green label is the same as the white label Amperex, they do sound different to me and feel the white label is the best, especially early 60s medical/military grade. 
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,533 posts
 
jea48, i think you made a mistake on those grey plate Siemens CCas.  If you take a closer look, those are the silver plates or shields.  You can see on the nearer tube where the shield is pinched (below the final s in Siemens) that it is clearly a shiny metal.  That is what you don't want.  Another indicator is the aluminum tag with the tube codes stamped on it above the silver shield.  These are later vintage tubes and are supposedly (I've never compared them) brighter and poorer sounding in general than the grey shields.   The grey shields have the codes etched into the glass like other Phillips tubes.

That may be the OP's problem.  If he got a pair of these instead of grey shields  he would probably be disappointed.
thewatcher101 OP
39 posts
 
I am really looking for a tube that has a high sense of realism in the presentation. The CCa did it for me if it wasn’t for the listening fatigue, you heard every pluck of the strong, the bass was nice and tight, voices was clean and clear. In my experince tubes that have a high sense of realism were also very accurate in recreating tones. 
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,533 posts
 
If anyone wants to study up on Phillips tube codes here's a link to the manual:
https://frank.pocnet.net/other/Philips/PhilipsCodeListAB.pdf

I will just add that you will probably only find tubes with the  'NEW' CODE format as seen on page 3, and probably only the top illustration with the codes etched into the glass on the side of the tube.
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