What is the E80L vacuum tube?

The E80L is a pentode vacuum tube designed for power / driver applications. Professional broadcast pentode. Robust..

What is a E80L substitute or equivalent?

Direct equivalents to the E80L include 6227. 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 E80L?

Amplification factor μ ≈ 22, transconductance gm ≈ 9 mA/V, plate resistance rp ≈ 90.0 kΩ, max plate voltage 300 V, max plate dissipation 8 W, heater 6.3 V / 0.75 A.

Is the E80L still in production?

Production status varies by year and manufacturer. The current Amperatubes catalog classifies the E80L 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 E80L sound like?

Professional broadcast pentode. Robust.. 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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E80L Pentode Vacuum Tube

Pentode6.3V / 0.75A9-pin Noval

SourcePhilips E80L/6227 datasheetReviewed2026-05-29StatusDataModelCalcModelunder reviewPDF

Small-signal pentode for low-noise voltage amplification

Datasheet ↗

E80L — Philips·Siemens — pentode vacuum tube — (1958)

90.0kΩ

9.0mA/V

11.0pF

0.1pF

7.00pF

GAIN22%

POWER20%

DRIVE10%

LINEARITY89%

SPECIFICATIONS

Heater6.3 V · 0.75 A

Max Plate Voltage300 V

Pa max8 W

Gain Factor22

gm9 mA/V

rp90.0 kΩ

Inter-electrode capacitances

Cgk11 pF

Cgp0.1 pF

Cpk7 pF

Pinout9-pin Noval

Era1958

RaritySought-after

HEATER6.3V / 0.75A

MAX PLATE300V / 8W

BASEnoval

Source datasheets

4 manufacturer datasheets cross-checked for E80L

4 verified

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The E80L is a indirectly-heated pentode from Philips·Siemens, introduced around 1958. It provides a gain factor (μ) of 22 with 90.0kΩ plate resistance. Commonly used in power / driver applications. Professional broadcast pentode. Robust.

HISTORY

Introduced1958ManufacturerPhilips·Siemens

Golden Age

E80L Datasheet

Local mirror · PDF

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METRIX TESTER

Test this tube on a Metrix

SPICE model not yet available. Loadline calculator requires calibrated Koren parameters.

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