[Jean Noire]

John, I never had a problem with my 60's De Vere cold cathode head and VC papers with below the lens filters. However the tubes can vary, I had to fit a new one and it was much better, the output was bluer. I've never needed to push to the extremes of a VC paper virtually all my negative print easily on Gd 2 or 3 so I never tried 00 or 5 and the usually criticism of Cold cathode heads is lack of those extremes.

Ian

Thanks for the reply Ian. I have an old De Vere Cathomag 302 which may date to the forties by the look of it. I have had it for about 4 years. When I bought it I had a new spare lamp with it. It is in full working order and I have never felt the need to change the lamp. It may well be the original and I am loathe to change it in view of the fact that Oddessy have quoted £240.00 for a replacement and at this price I would not want to be without a spare. The enlarger is fine with graded paper and no problem using negs developed in Pyrocat HD, which I have recently started using printing on graded paper. When I have used under the lens filters I have found that in some cases using a magenta filter lowers the contrast and have wasted a fair amount of paper in the attempts and have had to give up.
Perhaps I could try changing the lamp for the new one just to see if there will be a difference.
Best wishes.
John.