Tung Sol 5881
Built just like the old original, these new Tung-Sol 5881 have great compression and a lot of the vintage tonal character you would expect from the Tung-Sol brand. We compared these to the JAN 6L6WGB and NOS Tung-Sol 5881 are were very surprised to hear how good they are. Work well in amps with tube rectifiers.
The Tungsol 5881 is a 23 watt tube and is rated for a maximum plate voltage of 400Vdc. The many amplifiers that have higher plate voltage but use a tube rectifier can use the Tungsol 5881 tubes without issue. A prime example is the ’59 Bassman LTD. However it is also critical to rebias the amp heeding the 5881’s 23W rating. This will provide a vintage tone and less clean headroom. Leaving the bias set to a 6L6GC setting and/or using the Tungsol 5881 in a high voltage amp with a solid-state rectifier, will likely cause problems.
