People bag on Chinese tubes all the time... but I don't know... depending on the amp, sometimes they might be just what the doctor ordered.
I recently bought an Orange AD30 head that came equipped with Golden Dragon 12AX7s and EL84s... I've played it for a couple months and loved it's crunchy sound... thought it might be even better upgrading the first 12AX7 to a JJ... but it ruined it... the extended highs of the JJ were too piercing in this amp. The Golden Dragons have a more churlish, crunchy attitude that just works right in this amp.
P.S. I think these are the same tubes that Mesa Boogie uses for their production; (I know... not that that's the best endorsement tone-wise).
So all you Sino-tube bashers out there... stop the hatin' and start participatin'!
Donations
Golden Dragons...
Moderators: colossal, zaphod_phil, CurtissRobin
-
Mojocat
- Occasional poster
- Posts: 194
- Joined: Thu 12/30/04 2:00 am
- Location: Calgary, Alberta Canada
-
rjgtr
- Builder, Admin
- Posts: 6668
- Joined: Wed 11/24/04 2:00 am
- Location: Jax, FL
- Contact:
The 12ax7s have always been very good sounding and have a good amount of gain too.
In the past, the output tubes had a short life and were prone to early failure. However, in the past few years a few companies like GT and TAD have been working to improve the quality and it is up. I have some Chinese 5881s, KT-66s and TAD RCA clone 6L6s and they are all great tubes. The 5881s are on the dark side, but in a good bluesy way.
So Chinese tubes are a viable option these days.
On the JJs, some amps work better with some tubes than others. Or for some people. The nice thing about tubes is that you can swap them or mix and match to get the sounds you want.
In the past, the output tubes had a short life and were prone to early failure. However, in the past few years a few companies like GT and TAD have been working to improve the quality and it is up. I have some Chinese 5881s, KT-66s and TAD RCA clone 6L6s and they are all great tubes. The 5881s are on the dark side, but in a good bluesy way.
So Chinese tubes are a viable option these days.
On the JJs, some amps work better with some tubes than others. Or for some people. The nice thing about tubes is that you can swap them or mix and match to get the sounds you want.
0 x