Preamp tubes... What y'all using?

[NoLA-Riffft]

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[whiskey_face]

you ould drop in 1 in V1 and hear a huge difference, lemme look if I have another JAN if I do ill end that bitch to you.

[NoLA-Riffft]

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[Timm Grimm]

For the record, I don't really like jj's.

I feel the same way. In my experience they've been incredibly vanilla. Thus far, my go to has been the tung sol reissues.

[Timm Grimm]

Those of you who have used 12au7 or 12at7 to get better cleans, does it matter where you drop it in? Can I do this with just one tube change or should I change the entire set?

Edit: Peavey VTM60 if it matters

I did this on my Meatsmoke pre pedal. Threw a NOS RCA 12au7. Much preferred this to stock.

[misterstomach]

just scored a sweet deal on a vintage 60's mullard. i needed a tube as one of mine is going microphonic. really stoked to try this out. i always thought you had to drop 60-100 to get these, but knowing the right people is awesome. i got it for $25.

[waltdogg]

For the longest time I ran a 12AT7 in the PI on my Hellhawk to go a little cleaner coz the power amp overdrive on that amp is ridiculous(-ly awesome).

I have a 60's Philips Heerlen, NL 12AX7 in the V1 of my Hellhawk. That tube is SO smooth in it's breakup.

[moose23]

I seem to use old Mullards for pre and JJ for power but nothing too strict, also have some old Brimars and some newer Ruby. I do try have the Mullards in V1 or in the case of the Sc120 I always have one in the treble pre.

[potatofarmer]

For current production, your only actual choices are New Sensor, Shuguang, and JJ.

Personally I've never heard a difference between two tubes that was more significant than changing a 10 cent resistor or cap, but whatever floats your boat. CE Distribution / Antique Electronic Supply / Amplified Parts has put out a couple PDFs where they hired some poet to do an interpretive dance about the vast tonal differences from different manufacturers, then they publish a graph of all the tubes on top of each other and they're all essentially the same with slightly different gain. And that's at a worst-case scenario where they only checked one tube from each brand. If they averaged 20 from each brand and then compared those averages to each other...

Since tubes are made by hand I'd expect two 12AX7s from the same company to be just as different as two 12AX7s from different companies. Still, you can find a million people who get all "This 12AX7-A-B-SVT-STR-LOL has crisp highs that bring to mind the smell of autumn, while the midrange reminds me of how much I'm disappointing my father. A bargain at only $799."

Anyway.

I mostly use NOS for the oddballs since I've got buckets of them. For 12AX7s I've got a few from each factory and I've never really noticed a difference between them.

[waltdogg]

The only differences I ever really hear in new production 12AX7s is that New Sensors are bright, JJs are dark, and Shuguangs are stiff. But only ever so slightly, depends more on the amp they're in. In that regard, the new tubes don't sound *that* much different than the old tubes. I almost cant tell the difference between my Philips Heerlen 12AX7 and a Tung-Sol 12AX7 in the V1 of my Hellhawk.

[misterstomach]

that sounds like crazy talk to me. i don't hear a huge difference in new production tubes, but when i pulled the jj's out of my amp and put in old raytheon blackplates the difference was fucking huge. don't get me wrong, the amp sounded good before and i'm not a snob about tubes. i can't afford, nor do i really believe in dropping big coin on old tubes, but the difference was well more than worth the $25-30 extra i spent on the whole set versus buying new jj's. and i know a little about electronics, but i'm not the kind of wizard that just goes diving into my amp swapping resistors in and out to experiment with tone changes, and i don't think most people are, although it's cool if you can. not to mention, regardless of if i think it *should* be this way, the reality is that i have an amp that would lose a good chunk of value if i did any mods to it. so the ten cent resistor could end up costing me a lot more than the value of the tubes.

also, years ago i had a 5150 that i played the shit out of for five or six years. i believed and often got comments about how much better it sounded than most 5150's. it really was good. i thought i just had a special cool amp. eventually the power tubes started dying. the amp didn't sound as good, the eq range closed up on it, it seemed quieter. i think the chinese tubes that were in it might have even been there for long before i got it. I put a whole new set of jj preamp and power tubes in it. it gave it back some life, but after that it just sounded like a 5150. it's magic was lost. i fucked around with other preamp tubes a little too but it just never sounded that good again.

i must say though, i love this statement:

"This 12AX7-A-B-SVT-STR-LOL has crisp highs that bring to mind the smell of autumn, while the midrange reminds me of how much I'm disappointing my father. A bargain at only $799."

really sums up that kind of doucheyness well.

[waltdogg]

Those old black plates are a different story. Would have kept the Packard Bell long black plate 7025 I had if it wasn't so severely microphonic. That tube had something no other vintage tube I've used since had.

But the biggest difference I ever heard was swapping out the JJ 7027As in my V-4 for JAN Philips 7027As. And maybe then swapping JJ E34Ls in my Hellhawk for some old (50s-60s) Tesla EL34s, but that quad had a bum tube so it was too noisy.

Might have been that fabled generation of Chinese tubes that sounded really good at the time.

Haha, like when people pay extra for TADs or Rubys but they're the same damn tube as everybody else.

[misterstomach]

I've always assumed it was the special chinese tubes. the "ninth generation Shuguangs" or whatever. either way they sounded great.

i've never come across a decent enough deal on vintage power tubes to find it worth trying, but i wouldn't mind if i did.

yeah, part of the reason i scored that mullard for $25 instead of $75 is because it's labeled fisher. but it does say "made in great britain" and the production code imprints tell the truth. branding is everything.

[waltdogg]

Both sets were gifted to me. I've never dropped the money for vintage power tubes.

Yeah my Philips Holland is labeled HAMMOND in big red letters lol. But the date codes and seams at the top of the glass envelope don't lie.

[moose23]

Those old black plates are a different story. Would have kept the Packard Bell long black plate 7025 I had if it wasn't so severely microphonic. That tube had something no other vintage tube I've used since had.

But the biggest difference I ever heard was swapping out the JJ 7027As in my V-4 for JAN Philips 7027As. And maybe then swapping JJ E34Ls in my Hellhawk for some old (50s-60s) Tesla EL34s, but that quad had a bum tube so it was too noisy.

Might have been that fabled generation of Chinese tubes that sounded really good at the time.

Haha, like when people pay extra for TADs or Rubys but they're the same damn tube as everybody else.

Same tube but extra testing and matching.