Tube Rolling

[beaubrummels]

Here's the clip. Love the scientific part of it. There are times with the guitar soloed I can hear some preamp tube differences, mainly in the highs. Not a huge difference by any means.

When it's played back with the full mix nada. Cheap or expensive power tubes they all sounded the same to me.

FWIW

The problem with videos as a medium to review tube differences is that, IME, about half the difference in tubes is felt live in the room, the punch and air pressure coming out of the speakers with certain frequencies accentuated, the sensitivity under your fingers on the strings as it controls the breakup. Videos compress and obfuscate all that detail out, and obviously you don't get to feel the dynamics and sensitivity with your playing.

 

[St_Genesius]

I have no idea what tube rolling is.

There's a store in town that stocks a bunch of tubes and a few years ago, when it seemed like my amp was losing gain, I bought a few varieties to try out. The problem turned out to be something else, but meh, the tubes were cheap enough and it gave me a chance to experiment. Even playing all by my lonesome, the differences were firmly in the "I might be imagining this" realm of subtlety.

 

[beaubrummels]

I have no idea what tube rolling is.

There's a store in town that stocks a bunch of tubes and a few years ago, when it seemed like my amp was losing gain, I bought a few varieties to try out. The problem turned out to be something else, but meh, the tubes were cheap enough and it gave me a chance to experiment.

For the record, this is the definition of tube rolling.

 

[misterwhizzy]

Here's the clip. Love the scientific part of it. There are times with the guitar soloed I can hear some preamp tube differences, mainly in the highs. Not a huge difference by any means.

When it's played back with the full mix nada. Cheap or expensive power tubes they all sounded the same to me.

FWIW

Watching this video has me leaning a little closer to going AMT -> Howitzer and ditching the tubes altogether. That guy is obnoxious, but his methods seem legitimate, and it's hard to argue with the results.

 

[jeremy]

I am in the camp that NOS tubes and the " tube rolling " idealism is purely a designed market. GT tubes are probably the grandfather of creating NOS tube hype and creating the NOS tube and " rolling " market. After all, they sold tubes that they didn't make, so how do you sell more, you find a way to sell old tubes that you bought for pennies on the dollar.

Keep in mind that an NOS tube made 50 years ago only cost .25 cents at the time. Almost ALL current NOS tubes are warehouse clearance items that were bought CHEAP to clear out all the shelves they were consuming. There isn't anything particularly special about a tube made 50 years ago, except perhaps that it lived 50 years on a shelf and still works. DO they sound different than modern production tubes? Sure, just as each NOS tube brand sounds different from the other.

The market was fabricated and now being taken advantage of. There is certainly a scarcity of NOS tubes, but then why bother using them? If they will soon be gone and none are exactly alike, then you are buying an expensive tube to burn up ( literally ) and never be able to replace. So will current production tubes be NOS tubes in 30 years and be considered the epidemy of tube options?

Different tubes do sound a little bit different. NONE will ever take an amp from meh to OMG or visa versa. They will all just sound a little different. If you don't like X brand in your amp, then try another brand. You may find that JJ's sound better than the EHX offerings. The big thing to consider is that ALL the current new tubes you buy, are all made in three different factories. So many of the different brands have the exact same tube, it just has their name on it instead. NOS is a hyped market, tube rolling does not require NOS tubes and every tube will sound ever so slightly different, but never enough to make or break an amp.

gt may have been a big part of the tube rolling thing but did they sell nos tubes? i dont ever recall them selling nos stuff but who knows.

i do think some nos tubes are "better" than modern production, mostly cause tubes were much more important than they are now. now a days, its audiophiles and musicians for the most part. i have some old ass tubes that have 100s of hours on em and still sound and test good. cant say that about anything i have that was made in the past 30 years