Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

[fretburner]

I want to retube my 50w Silver Jubilee. I'm thinking Electro-Harmonix (about the same price as JJs) or going a little more expensive with Mullard Reissues ($105 tube set in Amazon)...

Are the Mullards worth the extra cash?

I'm very happy with JJs on my SLX and JCM800, and so it's my benchmark in terms of quality and price. I just want to try a different brand.

I could probably try TAD? About the same price as Mullards.

Thanks in advance!

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[beaubrummels]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

TAD STRs are really good. PSvanes look interesting but I haven’t had cash to try them. FWIW, JJ KT77s sound more like the Tesla EL34Ms that were in my SL-X when I bought it than any EL-34 I tried since. I don’t have a Jubilee however, so I don’t know how it would respond.

 

[fretburner]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

How different are the EL34B from the EL34M?

The ones on my SLX are actually JJ EL34 II. Very nice tubes.

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[Gtrjunior]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

$105 for a duet of Mullard’s..rip off.
TAD are good, as are the JJ, JJ also makes a 6CA7 which are also very good. I have a duet in my Blackstar.
I have used the Mullards too...nothing wrong with them, a lot of mids. But you can get them at Tubedepot.com for half that price.

If you liked the way the amp sounds now just use the same brand.
And BIAS them....I can’t stress that enough.

 

[Gtrjunior]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

https://tubedepot.com/t/tubes/power-tubes/el34-6ca7


This is where I shop for all of my tubes.
Never had an issue.

 

[Hsb]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

I dont know the difference between tube brands, but Ive had a set of Groove Tubes in my Jubilee for years and I have no complaints. Every so often though I hear something negative about GT's but thats about as often as I hear good things about them as well.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

The Tung Sol EL34B sounds good in my 50 watt Jubilee. The TAD EL34STR is also a good choice among current production tubes. The price should be no more than about $20-25 per tube for current production EL34s. If you can afford/find new old stock Siemens EL34s that would be the tube it original came with and the original sound.

For V1 I have had good luck with Mesa Boogie rebranded 12AX7s among current production. They are selected for high gain and low noise. The Gold Lion plain pin in V1 is also a good current production choice, if you want a warmer, less fizz alternative. The JJ ECC83 tubes tend to be darker sounding among current production if you have probelems with brightness, but Jubilees are are a darker sounding amp than typical Marshalls.

V2 doesn't matter as much but you want a high gain tube there, and with the Jubilee you don't need to worry about a cathode follower killing a current production Russian 12AX7 ( sovtek, EH, Mullard , Tung Sol, Svetlanna, brands) tube.

V3 is the phase inverter and many people like a long plate tube there. A long plate is the current production Mullard 12AX7 or the Sovtek 12AX7LPS.

I don't know the difference between tube brands

Today there are really only three sources for new tubes left. Russia, with the brand names: Gold Lion*, Tung Sol, Mullard, Electro Harmonix, Svetlanna, Sovtek. Slovakia which are the JJs. And China Shuguang factory.

Tube Amp Doctor, and Ruby select and test tubes and rebrand them like Groove Tubes. Groove Tubes is now owned by Fender. These rebranders do not make the tubes. Ruby and TAD usually use Shuguang tubes made to order.

*The Gold Lion 12AX7s are built by Shuguang instead of the Russian factory.

 

[fretburner]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

$105 for a duet of Mullard’s..rip off.
TAD are good, as are the JJ, JJ also makes a 6CA7 which are also very good. I have a duet in my Blackstar.
I have used the Mullards too...nothing wrong with them, a lot of mids. But you can get them at Tubedepot.com for half that price.

If you liked the way the amp sounds now just use the same brand.
And BIAS them....I can’t stress that enough.

Sorry about the confusion...

The $105 is for the full set of Mullard reissues: 3x 12ax7 and 2x EL34

My tubes right now seem to be NOS 6CA7s. I can't figure out the preamp tube brands.

I'm really leaning towards Mullard reissues but I just don't know the if they're much superior than JJs.

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[fretburner]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

The Tung Sol EL34B sounds good in my 50 watt Jubilee. The TAD EL34STR is also a good choice among current production tubes. The price should be no more than about $20-25 per tube for current production EL34s. If you can afford/find new old stock Siemens EL34s that would be the tube it original came with and the original sound.

For V1 I have had good luck with Mesa Boogie rebranded 12AX7s among current production. They are selected for high gain and low noise. The Gold Lion plain pin in V1 is also a good current production choice, if you want a warmer, less fizz alternative. The JJ ECC83 tubes tend to be darker sounding among current production if you have probelems with brightness, but Jubilees are are a darker sounding amp than typical Marshalls.

V2 doesn't matter as much but you want a high gain tube there, and with the Jubilee you don't need to worry about a cathode follower killing a current production Russian 12AX7 ( sovtek, EH, Mullard , Tung Sol, Svetlanna, brands) tube.

V3 is the phase inverter and many people like a long plate tube there. A long plate is the current production Mullard 12AX7 or the Sovtek 12AX7LPS.



Today there are really only three sources for new tubes left. Russia, with the brand names: Gold Lion*, Tung Sol, Mullard, Electro Harmonix, Svetlanna, Sovtek. Slovakia which are the JJs. And China Shuguang factory.

Tube Amp Doctor, and Ruby select and test tubes and rebrand them like Groove Tubes. Groove Tubes is now owned by Fender. These rebranders do not make the tubes. Ruby and TAD usually use Shuguang tubes made to order.

*The Gold Lion 12AX7s are built by Shuguang instead of the Russian factory.

My friend had Tung Sols on his Carvin Legacy 1.

I've had my eye on them for a while. My dilemma is that they cost about the same if not more expensive than Mullards. Same with TAD.

I like my amp a little darker. It's the reason why I gambled on JJ EL34 II on my SLX.

If you have a choice between Mullards, Tung Sol and TAD, are you going to stick with Tung Sols?

I have a pair of mesa-branded EL34s on my jcm900 combo. Good tubes and probably winged Cs which get a lot of rave.


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[fretburner]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

I dont know the difference between tube brands, but Ive had a set of Groove Tubes in my Jubilee for years and I have no complaints. Every so often though I hear something negative about GT's but thats about as often as I hear good things about them as well.

I almost forgot about Groove Tubes. I think they might have been the orig "rebranded" tubes, which is good because it means they select the better tubes from the manufacturers. Bad thing is you don't know from which manufacturer.

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[jeremy]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

it was pretty easy to figure out what each gt model was but not sure they are still doin it?

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

If you want your amp darker, then for power tubes it would be the Mullards or the TADs. JJ or Gold Lion for V1 and Mullards for V2 and V3.

If those are really old stock 6CA7s, hold on to those.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

*The Gold Lion 12AX7s are built by Shuguang instead of the Russian factory.

The standard pin ones are. The gold pin long plates are Russian.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

I've had a Jubilee 2555 since 2001 and a 2525H since 2017, but I consider LPB to be the authority on tubes in these amps.

These days I'm running JJ EL-34s in the power section with a Tung-Sol 12AX7 in V1, a Marshall-branded Shuguang in V2, and a Sovtek 12AX7LPS in V3. LPB is correct that a Jubilee will kill most Russian 12AX7s in V2 pretty quickly, though the Sovtek 12AX7WA, WB, & WC will work there as they don't have spiral filaments.

Given the choice between JJ & EHX at the same price, I'd take JJ every time these days. I used to swear by EHX, but they redesigned their tubes around 2008 and the newer ones don't sound as good or last as long. If you remember that tone and are after something similar, the Tung-Sol 12AX7 sounds very similar to a pre-2008 EHX IMO. I've also tried a JJ ECC83 in V1 and didn't care for it. The overdriven tones were really good, but clean tones were pretty flat and lifeless in comparison. If you're using the rhythm clip or not using the rhythm channel at all, then I'd have no reservations about using all JJs.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

Actually Jubes are plate follower instead of cathode follower. The spiral filament tubes should be okay. He could go with that Mullard set to make it easy.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

Actually Jubes are plate follower instead of cathode follower. The spiral filament tubes should be okay. He could go with that Mullard set to make it easy.

My 2555 killed a horde of EHXs in V2 before I heard about that and stopped using them. They were the newer post '08 versions, so maybe they just aren't built to the same standards they used to be. I'd previously used them in all three positions from 2001-2007 without issues, so it's hard to say for sure what the culprit was.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

My Jubilee killed a bunch EHXs and Tung Sols in V1. When I recapped it the killing stopped. This indicates that the tube killing was caused by the one cathode cap which is electrolytic had started going bad. However, I'm not sure there's an cathode cap on V2. Do you use anything in the loop?

 

[dystrust]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

My Jubilee killed a bunch EHXs and Tung Sols in V1. When I recapped it the killing stopped. This indicates that the tube killing was caused by the one cathode cap which is electrolytic had started going bad. However, I'm not sure there's an cathode cap on V2. Do you use anything in the loop?

I don't use the loop as I don't have a rack processor and find that it sounds pretty bad with stomp boxes. I was having noise and volume fluctuation issues that I couldn't figure out in early 2017, so I had Savage Audio check it out. He found several failed tubes but said that the caps still looked OK. I haven't used EHXs in either of my Jubilees since. The failed tubes were recently replaced and probably had less than 50 hours of play time on them.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

Hmmmm.. eating spiral filament tubes in v2 and the loop not sounding good, something might be amiss associated with v2.

 

[fretburner]

Re: Tube Suggestions for Silver Jubilee

My Jubilee killed a bunch EHXs and Tung Sols in V1. When I recapped it the killing stopped. This indicates that the tube killing was caused by the one cathode cap which is electrolytic had started going bad. However, I'm not sure there's an cathode cap on V2. Do you use anything in the loop?

I will probably use an mxr 10 band, analog chorus and analog delay through the loop...

I haven't tried it though. I'm still playing it straight up with no pedals. My older rig I use an EQ and a bunch of mod fx through the loop.

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