Advise for a NOS tube noob.

[guitfiddle]

Re: Advise for a NOS tube noob.

While it's true that rebranding was rife throughout the Golden Era, it is certainly not the case that blackplate RCA 12AX7's were made in any other factory other than RCA. They were discontinued at the end of the 1950's, and replaced with long grey plates at first, and then by short grey plates and given the 12AX7A designation with the extra filament. While RCA rebranded their tubes for many other companies (usually hi-fi companies) you will not find a long blackplate RCA branded tube that was made in another factory. The mark of the RCA factory is a hexagon with the tube's designation in it. Tubes from other factories will not have this mark. Once we get into the 60's and beyond, that's when RCA's could have been coming in from anywhere, but not with the 50's blackplates. But you will find RCA blackplates, made by RCA, with many other brand names, including Magnavox, Delco, Wurlitzer, Hammond, Westinghouse and Baldwin, none of whom made tubes themselves. In fact, even some early Tung Sols were actually made by RCA.

Cheers........................................... wahwah

He didn't say that. I thought he meant any design of tubes. So, you just need to know what to look for inside the tube if it's not labeled RCA, then. That's good to know.

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Advise for a NOS tube noob.

Some RCA's were actually Mullards, they'd be the short plate ones. I really like the grey long plate RCA, which MIGHT be Sylvania, but I don't think so because supposedly Syl's are low gain and bright, mine are warm and pretty high gain. I've never heard the black plates, which are supposed to be even better. The Matsu are jap made Mullards, better gain than the Tungrams, which were Yugo made Mullards, which are also really good. If the Raytheons are the long black plate type they are awesome, but super microphonic if you are playing a boogie or something high gain unless you're using it as a PI, which I did, and they sound great. Any of these along with RFT if you are playing high gain are excellent choices.