school me on some preamp tubes

Destroying Angel

Destroying Angel

New member
I was planning on putting some JJs in the preamp of my VHT, but i've seen a few discussions on here recently which left me thinking that there is something better out there. I've been eyeing a Mullard, tung-sol, and penta branded 9th gen shuguang 12ax7. What im looking for is a nice full, throaty midrange with a smooth top end. No crazy triple rec distortion or bass(although i do use a good amount of gain) pretty much a brown sound on steroids type of tone. Im pretty close to getting the tone i hear in my head to come out of my speakers and im hoping one of these tubes will make the clouds part and the heavens sing. Do you guys think spending the extra money on a couple of these tubes would be worth it? i was thinking about ordering 2 out of those 3 and comparing them to the Electro harmonix and ruby preamp tubes i have laying around somewhere. The amp they'll be going into is my VHT Deliverance 60 head. It has 4 preamp tubes total, but i only run it using the 'less' 3 tube mode.
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

I personally like JJ tubes very much and they are not expensive...YMMV
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

Tung sol and EH are my favorite preamp tubes. To me they they have enough bite but not fizzy and have a great midrange. not much at all more than JJ's which I find too dark. I love JJ power tubes though and use them. I have JJ's in some amps though and they are good but I prefer EH or tungsol. Tungsol is my fav
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

JJ's ECC83s seem to work well for my tone in my Marshall- in some amps, they can be dark or harsh, but to my ear, in my amp, they are the best. I've tried just about all the current and some NOS tubes, but I always seem to go back to the JJ's
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

This is really a personal taste issue and the same preamp tube type can work very differently in different amps.

A few tips .... only change ONE tube at a time and V1 is the most critical as it is the foundation for everything else. When an amp maker states that v1 is used for clean, v2 for crunch, v3 for ultra gain that is usually inaccurate as what generally happens is the tube gain is cascaded where one tube feels the others. So ... V1 is generally the most critical and any noise in the tube will be amplified down the signal chain.

Also ... shoot for a great clean tone. If you can't acheive a great clean tone then everything else will suffer. If the amp cannot produce a good clean tone then in my case I get a different amp. If you can get a great clean tone then you have the option of pedals and a variety of distortion tones but if the clean is poor then even with pedals the result will be unsatisfactory with overly compressed tones and lack of atriculation and definition.

First stick with getting the first gain stage to sound great. Play the amp and have somebody available to swap different tubes in V1 and keep the same amp settings. Sort of like the eye doctor .... is this better or is that better?
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

I've had really good luck with the Sovtek 12AX7LPS in my Marshall 2204, it sounds balanced and is pretty quiet. I like the tone of Tung Sols but they all died within minutes of installing them.

Cheers,

CJ
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

Usurper666 said:
I've had really good luck with the Sovtek 12AX7LPS in my Marshall 2204, it sounds balanced and is pretty quiet. I like the tone of Tung Sols but they all died within minutes of installing them.

Cheers,

CJ
Click to expand...

If you like the LPS you may want to try the JJ 803S. It is also a long plate as the LPS but has better current output in the average case, closer to design spec where the LPS is on average 20-30% low. Both of these long plate offerings tame the high bright aspect over the EH or Tung Sol Reissue in these amps when those tubes are used.
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

I really like the EH 12ax7's.
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

Myles said:
If you like the LPS you may want to try the JJ 803S. It is also a long plate as the LPS but has better current output in the average case, closer to design spec where the LPS is on average 20-30% low. Both of these long plate offerings tame the high bright aspect over the EH or Tung Sol Reissue in these amps when those tubes are used.
Click to expand...

I gave the JJs a shot but they didn't sound good in my amp at all. I tried a few and all of them were noisy and muddy. I have heard them in amps where they sounded good, they just didn't work in my amp.

Cheers,

CJ
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

I have a bunch of NOS 1960-61 Sylvania/Baldwin 12ax7's and 12au7's. These were specially designed for low noise and no microphonic applications. They are very warm sounding even under gain load and importantly, very quiet. I use them (12ax7's) in my JCM900 SL-X 2100 which is a very hissy amp like all 900s. I also have some 1960ish RCA's that sound very nice also. Can't beat the sound of true vintage tubes made when they mattered. I much prefer them over the EH's and JJ's
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

Northwinds said:
I have a bunch of NOS 1960-61 Sylvania/Baldwin 12ax7's and 12au7's. These were specially designed for low noise and no microphonic applications. They are very warm sounding even under gain load and importantly, very quiet. I use them (12ax7's) in my JCM900 SL-X 2100 which is a very hissy amp like all 900s. I also have some 1960ish RCA's that sound very nice also. Can't beat the sound of true vintage tubes made when they mattered. I much prefer them over the EH's and JJ's
Click to expand...
+1 on vintage tubes if you can get good ones. Originally had
Sylvania's in my Marshall and they were great!
 
Re: school me on some preamp tubes

Plain and simple, you are just going to have to try several different tubes until you find the "right" ones. Your income will play a roll in deciding what brands, and how many. I would tend to start with TungSol reissue, Sovtek LPS, JJ, and EH.
Good Luck, and have fun!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top