Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

[zzmoore]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

Yeah.....I do not KNOW.....but I will assume they did not do well.?

[Surgeon]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

Yeah.....I do not KNOW.....but I will assume they did not do well.?

That's my impression as well. As if they're discontinued or not I dunno but, from reading various threads and forums about those from a while ago, they seemed to be quite expensive (~35$/each earlier on) for something that, while quite practical, wasn't flying high on tube amps owner's radar...

[dominus]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

I'm wondering if they are being discontinued and they are blowing them out, that's about 1/3 of the original price IIRC. They are definitely good to have on hand for emergencies, although, emergency usually = bad power tube, but still....

1/7th the original price. They were $35 originally, and $100 in a three pack.

[Securb]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

I picked up a red to check out in my Chandler Tube Driver. If I like it I will probably pick up a few more.

[astrozombie]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

nobody's received them right?

[Mattallica]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

ive always thought that saving up all that money to buy a sexy tube amp and then pull out the tubes and turn it in to a solid state amp was a lame idea.
However, 5 bucks apiece for something that will get you through a gig in an emergency....yeah thats cool.
Unfortunately for me, including shipping to Aus, i can buy two real 12ax7s for the price of 3 of these, so I guess ill go back to being a tube snob (and yeah...ive not tried these ss plugins so I'm not just a snob, but I'm an uneducated tube snob too! lol)

Get you through a gig in an emergency? You do realize chances are slim to none that a preamp tube will ever fail. They will become microphonic at the worst, but still work. It's nearly pointless to have more than 1 preamp tube on hand as a backup.

In every amp I've ever owned, every 12ax7 sounds 99% identical. I've tried them all.

Think outside the box, take a maverick approach, try a few of these!

[ginormous]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

According to this website bio, the CEO of the company that invented them is Doug Roberts, son of the late great guitarist Howard Roberts.
Doug and Mike Soldano worked on amp designs together, before Mike started his amp company.

Roberts Audio Technology - Doug Roberts

[GuitarStv]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

I've always been fascinated by these, but put off by the price. I'm getting a blue and an orange to see how I like them for clean stuff.


Hey, speaking of which . . . I remember a bunch of years ago somebody was talking about coming out with solid state replacements for power tubes. Whatever happened to those?

[JOLLY]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?245224-Retrovalves-Review

[GilmourD]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

Get you through a gig in an emergency? You do realize chances are slim to none that a preamp tube will ever fail. They will become microphonic at the worst, but still work. It's nearly pointless to have more than 1 preamp tube on hand as a backup.

In every amp I've ever owned, every 12ax7 sounds 99% identical. I've tried them all.

Think outside the box, take a maverick approach, try a few of these!

I disagree about every 12AX7 sounding 99% identical. I have a box of 12AX7s that all sound different, and I know it's not placebo of money spent or perceived value because I have had a few instances where the el cheapo Chinese tube is the winner to my ear.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

Get you through a gig in an emergency? You do realize chances are slim to none that a preamp tube will ever fail.

It may seem unlikely on paper but I've had preamp tubes crap out on multiple occasions. Ive had them go microphonic, to just dropping dead, to glowing purple and making a godawful screeching sound that would make you swear your amp is exploding.
Getting a flat tyre on your car is unlikely but it happens. So does light globes blowing the house. Spend enough time dragging gear from home to gig, enough nights a week and it is inevitable something will fail. Tubes are generally happiest if you never move the amp, let alone carry the thing a block or two to a venue, or worse still vibrating the heck out of them while your amp is on rollers or a trolley, let alone soaking up road vibrations sitting in the boot of the car, or leaving the amp in the car in extremes of heat and/or cold.

IN terms of trying some of these ss tubes...im not actually against it, its just that due to postage they really aren't a whole lot cheaper than real tubes. Plus i have some spares so the experiment is not really worth it for me.

funny story tho...bad gig...i was at this town a long way from anywhere (Rylstone for anyone who knows rural new south wales) for an annual function they have.
I somehow managed to smash the power tubes in my amp while loading....yes i know its stupid to keep leads and other gear i the back of the amp. Anyway, the long and the short of it was that i did the 3 set gig plugged direct into the PA. lol. tone for days...not!
Anyway...bad stuff can happen at gigs and often does. There have been other occasions where either my or another band member's amp has needed a quick preamp transplant. I always carry spare toobs and a couple of fuses to.

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

^ Having spare parts is always a great idea. Having a backup amp altogether is WAY better. No diagnostics, no screws, no pulling and guessing (unless you smashed a power tube of course), no blowing a fuse 3x in 5min.

My current backup is a radial plexitube and a EH 44 Magnum Poweramp. Plexitube can go into the board too.

[BloodRose]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

I've always been fascinated by these, but put off by the price. I'm getting a blue and an orange to see how I like them for clean stuff.


Hey, speaking of which . . . I remember a bunch of years ago somebody was talking about coming out with solid state replacements for power tubes. Whatever happened to those?

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/show...ovalves-Review

Its these that the thread was referring to.

[JOLLY]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

I bought some of the 3 packs yesterday. They were back in stock.

[dominus]

Re: Retro Valves? Anyone tried them??

I've always been fascinated by these, but put off by the price. I'm getting a blue and an orange to see how I like them for clean stuff.


Hey, speaking of which . . . I remember a bunch of years ago somebody was talking about coming out with solid state replacements for power tubes. Whatever happened to those?

That was AMT. They've got the 12AX7s out but I don't think they've released the 6L6 or EL34s yet.