What is the E180F vacuum tube?

The E180F is a pentode vacuum tube designed for preamp applications. Frame-grid. Very high Gm..

What is a E180F substitute or equivalent?

Direct equivalents to the E180F include 6688 class. These share the same pinout and operating envelope, so they can usually be swapped without circuit changes — though batch-to-batch variations between manufacturers (NOS vs current production) may shift the sonic character noticeably.

What are the key specifications of the E180F?

Amplification factor μ ≈ 50, transconductance gm ≈ 16.5 mA/V, plate resistance rp ≈ 90.0 kΩ, max plate voltage 210 V, max plate dissipation 3 W, heater 6.3 V / 0.3 A.

Is the E180F still in production?

Production status varies by year and manufacturer. The current Amperatubes catalog classifies the E180F as Sought-after availability. NOS (new-old-stock) examples from RCA, Mullard, Tung-Sol, GE, Sylvania and Telefunken trade among collectors; modern production where it exists comes mostly from JJ Electronic, Electro-Harmonix, Tung-Sol (New Sensor), Genalex, and a handful of small-batch makers.

What does the E180F sound like?

Frame-grid. Very high Gm.. Sonic character also depends heavily on the circuit operating point, the surrounding tubes in the stage, and the output transformer when present — use the interactive loadline calculator on this page to explore the trade-offs.

By Jean-Michel Falligan Devergne · Reviewed May 29, 2026

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E180F Pentode Vacuum Tube

Pentode6.3V / 0.3A9-pin NovalSPICE

SourcePhilips E180F/6688 datasheetReviewed2026-05-29StatusDataModelCalcModelKoren pentodePDF

Small-signal pentode for low-noise voltage amplification

Datasheet ↗SPICE

E180F — Philips — pentode vacuum tube — (1958)

90.0kΩ

16.5mA/V

7.5pF

0.0pF

3.00pF

GAIN50%

POWER8%

DRIVE10%

LINEARITY75%

SPECIFICATIONS

Heater6.3 V · 0.3 A

Max Plate Voltage210 V

Pa max3 W

Gain Factor50

gm16.5 mA/V

rp90.0 kΩ

Inter-electrode capacitances

Cgk7.5 pF

Cgp0.03 pF

Cpk3 pF

Pinout9-pin Noval

Era1958

RaritySought-after

HEATER6.3V / 0.3A

MAX PLATE210V / 3W

BASEnoval

Source datasheets

5 manufacturer datasheets cross-checked for E180F

5 verified

Triode-connectedAEGMärz 1960 (Z 40 / Sf-Sick 57162) — 7 pages

Specs when the screen grid (g2) is tied to the anode — the tube acts as a triode.

18.5 mA/V

225

2.7 Ω

According to AEG (Sf-Sick / Telefunken-AEG) — trilingue DE/EN/FR (März 1960 (Z 40 / Sf-Sick 57162) — 7 pages): « Als Triode geschaltet »

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The E180F is a indirectly-heated pentode from Philips, introduced around 1958. It provides a gain factor (μ) of 50 with 90.0kΩ plate resistance. Commonly used in preamp applications. Frame-grid. Very high Gm.

APPLICATIONS

Voltage amplifier

Generic pentode preamp stage

HISTORY

Introduced1958ManufacturerPhilips

Golden Age

E180F Datasheet

Local mirror · PDF

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METRIX TESTER

Test this tube on a Metrix

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