Non-NOS Reliable 12AX7’s in 2025: Go…

[Junk Yard Dog]

After re-tube an amp with some L EL84’s, which I’m pretty sure I’m going with TAD’s on that one, and also four 12AX7’s.

Just seeing what you all are finding good success with for high gain amps.

Thx

 

[Mike Oxhuge]

My brand new Mesa Mark VII had 2 bad preamp tubes from the get go. One was an obvious manufacturing defect in the glass. Both Mesa branded as expected. The obvious defect tube was extremely microphonic. The other slightly noisy.

 

[skoora]

So far I’ve liked the PS Vane 12ax7’s I’ve tried. Has become my V1 tube in a few amps and replaced more in amps that needed more than V1 replaced.

 

[Rackman]

I just buy a bunch of JJ/Tesla ECC83S (short plate) tubes and run them through the tester and check for microphonics and reasonably close to 100 gain. If they're good on day 1 they seem to last for 1000s of hours.

If I didn't have the tester I'd just put them in V1 of a high gain amp, see if they sounded good, and tap with a pencil. Any ones that sounded bad or went *boink* too bad I'd throw out.

 

[EyesOfTheSouth!]

EH7025 in V1 of all my amps….love them there.

JJ83s in middle spots

Gold Pin EH12ax7 in PI (NOT 7025)

I also like Mullard CV4004 in V1 but I had a couple go bad pretty quick.

 

[SoooRad]

EH7025 in V1 of all my amps….love them there.

JJ83s in middle spots

Gold Pin EH12ax7 in PI (NOT 7025)

I also like Mullard CV4004 in V1 but I had a couple go bad pretty quick.

That's what came in V1 of my UK67. I'll be honest, I wound up pulling it, and I don't even remember what I replaced it with. Maybe an old "Perfect Connection" tube I had out of a Metaltronix M1000 I had many years ago.

 

[turtlefingers]

Gold Lion is on par with my NOS tubes.