High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

[Top-L]

I am looking for the highest gain preamp tube with the most hair. I have a 12ax7b which does this pretty well. The ruby tubes are darker and mellower.

Need something that will fill up the underlying tone with harmonics/hair/fizz/crunch to increase apparent saturation. Is tung sol what I should be looking at?

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

EH for gain and hair

 

[CTN]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

yeah tung sol or EH. they're pretty similar, but the tung sol is a bit more open and airy/shimmery, whereas the EH has a very slightly more compressed sound and less grainy drive characteristics.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

Beijing shuguang 6n4J/12ax7 (new 80's chinese 'silver dragon' reissue) Super high gain..low noise...balanced tone with some top end sizzle & tons of harmonics ...military grade. Awesome preamp tube..



Like this with the stars:

ie ..not the usual 9th gen Shuguang/Ruby:

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

JJ ECC83S also

Preamp design has a lot to with it as well as the number of valves in the gain stage. Three ECC83s will give you more gain than one regardless of manufacturer.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

Other guys have already answered this for you, but for future reference, in the past I came across a reasonable generalized comparison of current 12AX7 type tubes.

http://www.amplifiedparts.com/tech_corner/12ax7_comparison_of_current_made_tubes

The #1 way to answer this question is to get a bunch and swap them out in your amp and listen to the differences.

There's even sampler sets for that purpose. http://www.amplifiedparts.com/products/T-12AX7-SET

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

JJ ECC83S also

Preamp design has a lot to with it as well as the number of valves in the gain stage. Three ECC83s will give you more gain than one regardless of manufacturer.

Wouldnt say this as an absolute though... depends on how many gain stages are employed... Take a valvestate marshall, only 1 preamp tube but both sides are used as gain stages so 2 stages of gain... a 4100 marshall has 3 preamp tubes NONE of which are used for gain.

 

[Progbusters]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

electro harmonix and the chinese tubes for high gain

 

[Hank-]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

My experience with some current production tubes:
TAD Higrade Premium 7025(dont last long,develop loud pops & crackles in about 2 months time)
Tungsol RI(develops hum in about 2-3weeks)
JJ ECC83S(lasts 6 months or 18 months max)
Mullard RI (Only tested one, lasts 6 months before showing signs of microphonics)
EHX (Same issue as tungsol ri's, got a pair tested for high gain from dougs tubes one of which made popping sounds out of the box)
TAD ECC83 (lasted two yrs, came stock in the amp)
Tested non Tad tubes in V1 for long term use. Problems i mentioned about are for that position only.

For harmonics i guess any would do but its finally up to the amp on what it likes best. For more hair get an EQ pedal-boss ge7(mod),mxr 6/10 band, dano fishnchips. Makes the job easier than searching for correct tubes.

 

[Top-L]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

My experience with some current production tubes:
TAD Higrade Premium 7025(dont last long,develop loud pops & crackles in about 2 months time)
Tungsol RI(develops hum in about 2-3weeks)
JJ ECC83S(lasts 6 months or 18 months max)
Mullard RI (Only tested one, lasts 6 months before showing signs of microphonics)
EHX (Same issue as tungsol ri's, got a pair tested for high gain from dougs tubes one of which made popping sounds out of the box)
TAD ECC83 (lasted two yrs, came stock in the amp)
Tested non Tad tubes in V1 for long term use. Problems i mentioned about are for that position only.

For harmonics i guess any would do but its finally up to the amp on what it likes best. For more hair get an EQ pedal-boss ge7(mod),mxr 6/10 band, dano fishnchips. Makes the job easier than searching for correct tubes.

Some bad luck. My Hafler 12ax7s are going on 25 years and still working great.

Ten years ago, I bought some pre tubes from thetubestore.com and one out of three was bad. The other two were uninspiring and went into some gear I sold.

All the other tubes I have bought were Groove Tubes, and I can't remember any of them going bad. I sold a handful of unused ones last year.

I wonder if 12ax7s have high failure rate unless carefully screened. I would guess amp builders need to ship with reliable tubes, and Groove Tubes charges extra for screening. I wonder if the smaller shops just buy leftover bulk material?

 

[Top-L]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

For harmonics i guess any would do but its finally up to the amp on what it likes best. For more hair get an EQ pedal-boss ge7(mod),mxr 6/10 band, dano fishnchips. Makes the job easier than searching for correct tubes.

There is a difference when the harmonics are on top of the fundamental tone and when they are part of it. I go for Satriani style crunchy tone.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

Some bad luck. My Hafler 12ax7s are going on 25 years and still working great.

Ten years ago, I bought some pre tubes from thetubestore.com and one out of three was bad. The other two were uninspiring and went into some gear I sold.

All the other tubes I have bought were Groove Tubes, and I can't remember any of them going bad. I sold a handful of unused ones last year.

I wonder if 12ax7s have high failure rate unless carefully screened. I would guess amp builders need to ship with reliable tubes, and Groove Tubes charges extra for screening. I wonder if the smaller shops just buy leftover bulk material?

FWIW about 10 years ago I bought a case of white box unsorted 9th gen chinese tubes. The seller was upfront in saying they were completely untested and unslected but were dirt cheap. If i remember right i paid 330 for 144 tubes. I figure that if 25% were bad that I could still cherry pick a couple dozen for me and sell the rest. Off the top 30% were either unusable in microphonics they were noisey and sounded literally like trash or just plain dead. Then i started to test and sort them. When I was finished I had 18 that were good and had high gain. I had 11 more that were lower gain but usable. The rest either didnt pass test or died during burn in.

Sorting counts for A LOT when dealing with modern made tubes. I"m sure people out there can test better than i can with my old WW2 tube tester and just plugging them in and listening to them. But iam also sure thats why they charge 12-15 bucks per tube.

 

[Demanic]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

I'll be another voice for JJ's.

 

[Reckless Abandon]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

Subjective and of course company ratings matter but,
I got better gain taking the JJ out of V1 and using an EH

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

What about EH or Tung-Sols?

 

[jclogston]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

JJ ECC83s from eurotubes for me...

 

[synzzzer]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

For "modern" meaning not "new old stock" tubes, I would say EH. I remember reading an article where a guy tested a bunch of them. The EH may not be the best sounding of the group, but it was the most rugged and had the thickest glass. (It ranked 2nd best sounding overall.) He ranked them the best "touring" tube as they are tough to kill. As with any tubes, you are going to have good and bad ones, but on average the EH has more great working, out of the box tubes than other manufacturers. Some will agree with me, some will disagree. But give em a try. I think you'll be happy that you did.

 

[JeffB]

Re: High Gain 12ax7 with harmonics and hair?

Yeah. Eh, tung sol. JJ ecc83s

If you can live with a little bit of low end loss, Svetlana is excellent I ME for new stuff. The mullard RI is very tight and one dimensional IME.