THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG

Mama Mia!  An e-mail from Vigata in Sicily enquiring about when certain valve bases were introduced.   I know a valve dealer from Sicily you know, he's from Messina and ever such a nice chap but I digress........ There exists a whole raft of valve bases, however, I shall deal with only the most commonly seen bases and their dates of introduction in the following table:- Year of Introduction Valve Base Type Descriptive notes 1916 B4 Introduced by French valve manufacturer Duclos-Fivre 1927 B4 + side screw Introduced for indirectly heated cathodes 1928 B4 + top cap VHF/ UHF anode top...

Ello peeps, well, I'm back from my travels and am in a good mood so, I thought I would share this radio related radio joke with you, anyhow, here goes............ An elderly couple are listening to a preacher on their Atwater Kent breadboard radio when the preacher tells the listeners "If you need healing today, I want you to place a hand on the part of your body you need healed, then place your other hand on the radio's output valve and you will be healed!"    The old man slowly places a hand on the power output valve then  inches his other hand  firmly...

The fabulous 50s was a wonderful time for the radio enthusiast as most towns had a surplus store selling contains of ex military kit and if you were in the big smoke, well Lisle Street and immediate environs were your oyster.  The 50's were also a time of scientific optimism where we had fanciful ideas like using atom bombs to excavate tunnels through mountains and build roads and then there was the look skyward to the heavens. Early 1957 was particularly noteworthy and the Sputnik launch on 4th October 1957 changed the World forever.  First we had the agog astonishment that...

I thought that today we could continue to Eastern - cyrillic theme and look at a Russian valve numbering system.  Well, whilst researching this blog article I really could have done with my Dad here as his Ukrainian multilingual ability would have been most useful, honestly, how do you cope with a 33 letter alphabet?   But no,  I persevered and didn't even contact my pal Gary Skiba who could have helped as well.   Some of you may know Gary as the leading UK Leak guru - I'll certainly be bending his ear when my blog subjects turn to all things Leak, anyhow, I digress, for here...

Last time I described the exciting treatment that Noctode, our cat provides for the valves I have on sale. It has long been my opinion that Pussy treatment of valves gives EXACTLY IDENTICAL audible effects to that provided by cryo treatment of valves, but ho-hum, that’s a very subjective claim so I sought a more scientific unbiased opinion. To this end, I lobbied a famous reviewer from the hifi comics, sorry magazines, to do a blind comparison on my behalf. The day dawned and the critical ears of  Xmas Cipher-Thicket were called upon to perform.I tried to do the best I...