Posted by Damir [ 213.202.85.164 ] on July 12, 2005 at 14:50:02:

In Reply to: Re: JTM pre-amp valves posted by Thermionic on July 12, 2005 at 10:24:03:

I can say that even slightly microphonic tube have no place in my amps. And yes, we can say that first tube is the most important (noise and tone-wise), but their combination is what matters. It`s hardly subjective, for example - I found "Mullard" ECC83 good sounding, IMO - it doesn`t "break", but "softly and warm" compress - but too much for me. TFK ECC83 is arguably "best of the best", but in my amp (Fender "Deluxe Reverb") doesn`t work in the first position - overall sound was (too) clean and bright. But, in the 2nd position - that`s IT! And I (preffering "cleaner" sound) used 12AY7 or 5751 in the first position.
And yes, I changed reverb driver (12AT7) to 12AU7 and power amp driver (12AT7) to E180CC.
Once, my friend (owner of the profy studio) and I retubed some of his amps the whole day long - every combination (preamps tubes, output tubes, rectifier) we recorded (the same riff) on hard disc-recorder. Then we listened, and compared...huh. And yes - some of my favorite combinations/tubes didn`t work for him, but some other, pretty odd:-)

Replies: