6C10 triple triode

I just discovered this tube in a Fender Superchamp. I never even knew it existed! Three triodes in one bottle!

Does anyone have a datasheet for this tube? I can't seem to find it anywhere. For some reason I find data on other tubes with the same name that were only 8 pins, etc.

Has anyone here ever designed any audio circuits around it?

E.

I've never even seen a 12-pin tube!

Try this:

http://hereford.ampr.org/cgi-bin/tube?tube=6C10

The link lists 6BK11 as a substitute. Duncan Amps TDSL says CV9834 is the same tube as well.

Peace,
Al.

This thing made me curious, so I poked around on the net and found people use 6K11 and 6Q11 as substitutes as well...

Apparently Ampeg used 6BK11 in a couple of amps, and people substtute them with 6C10, 6K11 or 6Q11 because the original tube is getting hard to get.

I looked for a bit, but I can't find plate curves for any one of these tubes. If someone does, please post them!

Peace,
Al.

You guys never heard of a triple compactron? Geez...

http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/127/6/6C10.pdf

The 6C10 is equivalent to (3) 12AX7. There was another compactron (I don't recall the number) that was equivalent to (2) 12AX7 and (1) 12AU7. That would have made a great little one-bottle preamp.

I wouldn't bother to design anything with compactrons now, because they're not made anymore, they were never very common to begin with, and they're hard to find now.

It might be harder to find the socket....

[quote author="ciminosound"]It might be harder to find the socket....[/quote]

Three bucks at Antique Electronic Supply. They even come in RED!

> You guys never heard of a triple compactron? Geez...

Kids. They never had to wait for a TV to warm up, and never Touched That Dial. Or if they did, they never broke the interlock to play with the tubes.

> I can't find plate curves for any one of these tubes.

They ARE the standard dual-tubes, except triples. I think there is also a dual pentode in the line.

If it says Mu=100, then it IS a 6SC7 AKA 12AX7. The changes in the Mu=100 triode from 1938 to 1968 are less than the differences in 12AX7s from different factories in the same era.

By this point in the game, nobody was designing really-new tubes any more. The writing was on the wall. But until transistors killed their business, the tube makers did re-package the same old designs to shave a few pennies off the total cost of a TV. In MASS production, saving a few pins means the difference between profit and loss (more like, in the tube-TV racket: stay in break-even business another year or go broke now).