The Lamp Room

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.

My vote is split between UK GE and Dutch Philips.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.