Ok, after all the time spent building, and troubleshooting the crackle and getting my amp sounding great and I was so happy, I did the dummest thing ever; I took a nap and the phone rang; in a half-asleep daze I tripped over my guitar cord and my unprotected amp went SPLAT! on the floor tubes down (about a 3' drop). Busted V3 completely, broke the mount on V2 socket, bent the pins on all of them. I got out my pliers straightened out the pins on the ones that weren't broke, and went to the local guitar store to get another tube. They had a single 12AX7 "GT-12AX7C"; it was 20 bux. I wanted my amp back up so I bought it and moved my other tubes down and put it in V1. The amp came back to life and still sounded ok. Seemed like it might have a little more buzz in the background and possibly more gain. I am going to try swapping the GT to V2 or V3 and see if the buzz calms back down.
Anyway, I know groove tubes don't make their own tubes, they just test and resell. this one lights up a lot more than the other 12AX7s. My others are EH. Could the buzz be coming from the tube or is it just being amplified more? It's always had some buzz but I figured I would troubleshoot that later after I shield my guitar.
Donations
what are groove tubes?
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deadgame
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rjgtr
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Go to the Groove Tubes website and they describe the region the tubes comes from. You can deduce the manufacturer from there. The "-C" tubes are made in China. The 12ax7s are good tubes with a good full range response. The '-R' tubes are Russian made almost always Sovtek.
Groove Tubes does provide matching and started the whole tested tube thing. I don't think buying the preamp tubes (12ax7s) they relabel gets you alot. They do have one exclusive design in preamp tubes, the GT-12ax7-M, which is a nice sounding tube. Their power tube matching is very good but others do this as well. I find that buying tubes at Guitar Center is generally only for the desperate. Online stores, such as http://www.tubesandmore.com, http://www.thetubestore.com or http://www.tubedepot.com are all reliable sources of new tubes at much better prices ($9-12 for the Chinese 12ax7 vs $20 for the GT). I generally use http://www.kcanostubes.com for NOS tubes, but Sarge (who posts here) is also a good source of NOS tubes.
Groove Tubes does provide matching and started the whole tested tube thing. I don't think buying the preamp tubes (12ax7s) they relabel gets you alot. They do have one exclusive design in preamp tubes, the GT-12ax7-M, which is a nice sounding tube. Their power tube matching is very good but others do this as well. I find that buying tubes at Guitar Center is generally only for the desperate. Online stores, such as http://www.tubesandmore.com, http://www.thetubestore.com or http://www.tubedepot.com are all reliable sources of new tubes at much better prices ($9-12 for the Chinese 12ax7 vs $20 for the GT). I generally use http://www.kcanostubes.com for NOS tubes, but Sarge (who posts here) is also a good source of NOS tubes.
Last edited by rjgtr on Mon 01/02/06 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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novemberrain
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You can still get decent deals on Fleabay... look for the assorted 12AX7s, "We can't test 'em, we don't have a tester", etc. It's a crap shoot but every so often you get someone who is actually selling good stuff for cheap, by and large the bulk of the stuff that looks fecal actually IS fecal...deadgame wrote:Yea I was interested in snagging a few NOS tubes but I'm glad I didn't do it right away.
thanks
Every so often I blow out a big lot o' 12AX7s on the 'Bay. YEAH I can thoroughly test 'em but who gives a damn, a lot of the folks who sell there just cop someone else's test data so it's all pretty meaningless... ANYWAY, with a couple hundred amps and a couple thousand 12AX7s every so often I just get a wild hair and pull all the '60s RCAs from one of my old Fenders and stick Telefunkens in there for instance. Yer fortunate to get my hand-me-downs, not all of the vendors over there are scumbags. Just most of 'em!
I've said this a million times and I'll say it again: I got my start repairing and building tube amps decades ago when I started ripping up old phonographs and reel to reel tape decks among other things, and building kick-ass amps for me poverty stricken punker buddies. The same dodge still works, just grab any old tube phonograph you can find. YES they're a LOT harder to find than they were twenty years ago but many of them STILL contain lightly used 12AX7s, 6V6s, 6BQ5s, 5Y3s, 6X4s, etc., etc..
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hinzer
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How to find suitable NOS tubes?
I realize that this can be a subjective question...however...what do I look for in purchasing NOS tubes for my upcoming build? I'm sure there are certain critera points to strive for rather than buying anything labeled NOS. Just like everyone and their grandma, I want fat tone also. Anyone have any helpful hints for a NOS newbie?
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