Who made the best?

[FrontSideBus]

Who do you reckon makes/made the best?
If it's multiple choice like Philips then click Philips and state the Dutch ones were better than the Polish ones ect.

[FrontSideBus]

My vote is split between UK GE and Dutch Philips.

[Oliver]

Osram, Philips, and GE were all great. I haven't really used the other brands much so can't say however, I have some GEC 8w tubes and I'd expect them last well.

[Slyspark]

Best tubes have to be the GB & Holland made Philips - I mean, they routinely did 10+ yrs in daily service. Just went on and on and on.

If you ignore ring-offs on older lamps, Thorn / Atlas / Mazda / Ekco were all decent too, just a shame that age seems to get to these more than other makes. Osram-GEC had a decent lifespan too, tho again with age, the caps tend to come off these. Osram are decent too, as were Narva - pity they went bust.

To be fair, most older makes of tube were good, it's the modern ones that are not. Some of these once decent brands now last a pathetic amount of time compared to the tubes they once made.

[Oliver]

I know some Philips Holland T5 14w Tubes that were from 2004. They were relamped early 2019. They did huge hours!

[Danny]

Im split between GB GE and Philips personally. The older sylvania were good like pre GTE And GTE days

Philips Crompton Were good but now made by china so shit lol

[Oliver]

I’d say the Philips. The GE GB seemed to go dim quite a lot, the T8 ones at least. Not sure what the GE Longlast T5s were like.

[AngryHorse]

Probably has to be Philips, Holland and Thorn/GEs British ones?

[Ash]

T8 - Philips (Holland) / Osram (Germany)

T12 - Really most of them made between 70s..90s, including Tadiran (Israel), Philips (USA, Holland and Poland - all of them), Sylvania (USA), probably other US lamps too

The M Shaltiel A2 shoplights i am restoring for use in my future workshop (50 fittings), which definitely done many hours between 2000 - 2020 (as is evident by the soot on the reflectors and many melted capacitors inside the luminaires....), had all original tubes in them except maybe 2 tubes. Philips Holland 58W/54's and classic Philips S10 starters (Off white color with sideways etch)

We have had very little UK ones to have any meaningful conclusion, but visiting a hall in 2006 that was fully lit with Thorn T12's with the "3 line" etch, all original to the building from the late 70s / early 80s, was impressive. I think they haven't done many hours though

[BC5-80]

Thinking of T12s I'd say Crompton or Philips (same thing). Very boringly they'd last for ever and never exhibit EOL behaviour until just before the end, for which you waited a lifetime.

What about Philips France? No-one has mentioned those but they seem to last for ever as well.