I know....I Know.....

[Chubsman]

I know we have had this discussion before... but!

I need to buy 3 12ax7 tubes for my 36 watt project... now... my question..


What make and
from who (where)


Thanks

[ninoman123]

I like 12ax7 electro hamonix tubes in mine. You might get a lot of people telling you to get NOS stuff, but Ive loved these and I do have a few NOS tubes. Might give them a try. They are cheap too. heh

[str82hvn]

I know we have had this discussion before... but!

I need to buy 3 12ax7 tubes for my 36 watt project... now... my question..


What make and
from who (where)


Thanks

Buy a bunch of cool old tubes from Sargent Overdrive and then switch them around untill it sounds the best.

str82hvn

[rjgtr]

In new production try JJs or Ruby (Chinese Shuguang).

However, I second getting some NOS. Try Sarge who posts here. He tends to like more American sounding tubes, but he has Mullards (pricey but perfect in a Marshall), RFTs (a great sounding tube for Distortion) and Tesla ECC803s (very nice rounded tone).

I also use KCA NOS Tubes for some things and their service is very good.

When going NOS make sure you buy from a reputable dealer.

[blaren]

Check your basement. Every time you saw some 12AX7s in stores way back when and retubed all your old amps you kept all the old tubes remember? You'll probably at least have a bunch of westinghouse, jan phillips, sylvanias, RCAs.....
They're all still down in the basement somewhere.
Now if you never went on these little tube rampages every so often, all your old preamp tubes are still in the amps. That's good too. You can try all those brands. You can rob all the ones in V2 and replace them with new production and use the good ones in V1 of your new amps.
Go out hunting locally. 12AX and AT and AU7s are all over the place. Even the TV guys had tons of them.
There arent a whole lot of better ways to waste a day than to sit there with a bag of preamp tubes and messing around.

[bentonAR18]

Someone a few days ago said "Check flea markets and your local church"...? I thought that was silly, but I asked the church choir director if they had any old junk to get rid of. He gave me an old PA that had a pair of mid-60's EL34's and 3 or 4 12AX7's; I think it's a Slingerland (didn't know they made PA's!). He also gave me a dead Baldwin organ... then I noticed it was missing one tube. Pulled it from the PA, stuck it in, plugged it in the wall, warmed it up, and it worked! The organ has 2 6L6's, 3 or 4 12AX7's, and like, 18 12AU7's! Choir director told me if I will move them out of the church I can have 'em both!

Now, what could I make with EL34's? hmmmm........

And you remember that box of old tubes in the basement? Keep them: even if they are old and don't sound so great, I would much rather find out my homebrew is badly wired with junk tubes in it then finding out with a freshly bought set of NOS Mullards and Brimars! Fire it up the first time with the junk: if it works then try it with your jewels!
John