JVM and VM eating preamp tubes on me

[Tnjpekar]

just wondering if anyone else was encountering this. so far my jvm eats a tube in v1 about every 6 months or so, and my vm seems to be a bit longer but not by much.
to be fair, I had a few gt12ax7m's in there, and they were not known for reliability, but this last one was a telefunken.
munch munch, go micro.
maybe I need to get a new batch of tubes or get them from a different supplier?
have a jj in the jvm now, not as creamy as the mullard, but its just fine for now, but a good tube makes all the difference in the VM and I am stuck at what to put in there.

Thoughts?
oh, I run them in stereo, so when they both go, it gets a bit noisey, and its always live

 

[MOAAH]

Your Telefunken may have been a dud, even NOS can have those. As for new tubes, try the Tung-Sol, maybe the best of the newer brands. I avoid GT like the plague.
Keep in mind vibration is the worst enemy of tubes, so maybe if you ain't got road cases, it's something to consider. I suggest having your amp looked at, but then it is doing it in both amps, so chances are both amps cannot be to blame. Oh and just a side note, pretty much all failures I had with real Mullards were from microphonics.
If your in LI, maybe try New Sensor, they started selling retail a while back, and are just around the block from you.

Good luck.

 

[kannibul]

Shove some C9's in there or TungSol's.

I'm still on the stock tubes, and it's been a good 3 or 4 months, at least...

 

[Tnjpekar]

for me the VM really picked up from a preamp swap, so I went with the reissues in v1 for a nice creamy vintage vibe. but running the gain up high and putting the hours on her I guess these newer production tubes weren't up to the task.
the jvm, well, keep the gain up, run her hot and put her away wet
the jj sounds pretty good in there and its held up the longest so far. maybe it was just the batch of tubes I was in.
I may drop a nice blackburn mullard into the vm and see how it goes, but I would rather reserve them for my jmp.

 

[MOAAH]

FWIW-Running the gain up high should not effect a preamp tube. The two preamp tube killers are: vibration and hot expansion/cold contraction. Much like an old style light bulb.

 

[MrDan666]

For what its worth, i have been using Sovtek 12AX7LPS in V1 and V3 of my JCM800, but not in V2. Both The Sovtek 12AXLPS and the TungSol 12ax7 cant handle the voltages of the cathode follower position. They just fail and stop working. So i just threw a Chinese 9th gen in V2 and it works great! That combination just kills IMO.. Enough clarity, but also enough saturation. The tone is pretty balanced

That tube combination hasnt gone bad on me once yet, *touch wood*.. im on the same set of preamp tubes that i bought ages ago now and im regularly playing the amp LOUD and also it gets knocked about in the car to and from band practice!