Another tube quality complaint thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter MadAsAHatter
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MadAsAHatter

MadAsAHatter

Well-known member
Maybe about 10-12 months ago I bough a handful of Mesa stamped 12AX7's to have on hand; 10 total. Recently I've replaced a couple of preamp tubes and almost half of those I bought are duds. They all tested fine when I first got them. The duds worked for about a month before they shitted out. I have ones that are over 10 years old and still going strong, but these new ones can barely last a week. Fucking Hell!

Tubes shitting out this quickly still sucked but wasn't as big of a deal when they only cost a few dollars each and you maybe got 1/20; if that much, being a dud. But fuck, with prices at $20+ for a single 12AX7 now and potentially half are crap... that's going to get irritating really quick. I really don't want to think about new production power tubes now.

Getting past my bitching, what have y'all found to be decent quality new production tubes and where are you getting them from? Anything at reasonable prices?
I would have thought Mesa stamped ones would have been better quality, but obviously not. At least I was able to get them when they were $10/each instead of $20. I generally buy from Nesstone and haven't had an issue with anything that has that brand. Their prices have always been comparatively reasonable too. But they haven't had their stamped 12ax7's in stock for a while.
 
i hate toobs and the anxiety that goes with them. really wish they would find an alternative and they would go away forever :dunno:
 
Years ago I bought a stash of sovtek 12AX7WCs.

The glass on one of them literally cracked while inside the amp and it fell apart trying to pull it out. Pins weren’t misaligned or anything like that and like you it was in the amp about a month. I’ve never had a problem with physical tube quality but that was a $20 tube down the drain.

I’ve also had many others just be more noisy.

With tube costs the way they are post covid due to the wars, adding in inflation, it’s kinda worrisome.
 
If you can find used but strong older tubes, both pre and power, I'd suggest going that route. I've never bought NOS tubes, always used but test strong, and rarely do I have any failures. I can't remember the last tube from my stash that failed, and they are all vintage pulls or bought on eBay from a decent seller as used/good.
Vs almost a 50% failure rate when I've bought a new amp, which isn't very often, but the EVHs that I've bought, 4 total, new, 2 of them had bad JJ power and a pre or two. The MT 100 had a bad TAD 6L6. That one, I should've known better and taken them out immediately in favor of a set from my stash. And, all those new tubes were supposedly tested. Even the 3 good 6L6s from the MT, when I tested them they tested at 85 on my tester, 80 is minimum good....while the 25 yr old Sovtek 5881s all tested at over 100% and they were all used.
Go figure.
 
Good point on used tubes. At this point a lot aren't comparatively more expensive than new. If they haven't failed by this point and still test as good they're probably pretty solid. Might as well pay a few dollars more for better quality and reliability.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I appreciate the offer, but I'm good for now. I thought I had a decent stash of 12AX7's. With those duds I'm at the bottom of the pile. I need to build my stash up again, but still have 2 JJ's in reserve.
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Let me know if you change your mind, this is about 10% of my "stash" :

20240112_192329.jpg


More than happy to send you some!
 
Racerxrated said:
If you can find used but strong older tubes, both pre and power, I'd suggest going that route. I've never bought NOS tubes, always used but test strong, and rarely do I have any failures. I can't remember the last tube from my stash that failed, and they are all vintage pulls or bought on eBay from a decent seller as used/good.
Vs almost a 50% failure rate when I've bought a new amp, which isn't very often, but the EVHs that I've bought, 4 total, new, 2 of them had bad JJ power and a pre or two. The MT 100 had a bad TAD 6L6. That one, I should've known better and taken them out immediately in favor of a set from my stash. And, all those new tubes were supposedly tested. Even the 3 good 6L6s from the MT, when I tested them they tested at 85 on my tester, 80 is minimum good....while the 25 yr old Sovtek 5881s all tested at over 100% and they were all used.
Go figure.
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+1 on the Sovteks. I still have the originals in my mig 50 and jtm30 for 25+ years.
 
I know they get dogged a lot but I've been pretty happy with JJ's. Both pre and power. I used to dog on Eurotubes too in the past but I really have no complaints from them and I've bough tubes and probes. :dunno:

NowYou'rePlayingWithPower said:
Let me know if you change your mind, this is about 10% of my "stash" :

View attachment 281264

More than happy to send you some!
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Damn girl! How on earth?

What's up with the row of 'blacked out' power tubes?

I may PM you for some NOS pre's but I'm happy to pay for them.
 
311splawndude said:
I know they get dogged a lot but I've been pretty happy with JJ's. Both pre and power. I used to dog on Eurotubes too in the past but I really have no complaints from them and I've bough tubes and probes. :dunno:


Damn girl! How on earth?

What's up with the row of 'blacked out' power tubes?

I may PM you for some NOS pre's but I'm happy to pay for them.
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They're from my Grandfather's music store that closed down years ago, most are 50s-70s from what I've come across. Pretty much anything and everything by everyone. They've been in boxes in my cellar after and I had went through some of them with a tester before it had a meltdown just before covid. Then my daughter took over the place with her band and storage, etc... Now I'm just starting to get the space back so I'll be more than happy to hook up posters of clips and other good members of the forum who have helped others. Unfortunately, they aren't all tested, so kind of a gamble until I can get another tester. Though out of the few hundredish or so that I did test, I think I only came across one bad one, iirc.
 
NowYou'rePlayingWithPower said:
They're from my Grandfather's music store that closed down years ago, most are 50s-70s from what I've come across. Pretty much anything and everything by everyone. They've been in boxes in my cellar after and I had went through some of them with a tester before it had a meltdown just before covid. Then my daughter took over the place with her band and storage, etc... Now I'm just starting to get the space back
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Interesting story.

NowYou'rePlayingWithPower said:
so I'll be more than happy to hook up posters of clips and other good members of the forum who have helped others. Unfortunately, they aren't all tested, so kind of a gamble until I can get another tester. Though out of the few hundredish or so that I did test, I think I only came across one bad one, iirc.
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PM sent.

PS: That is less than 1%. Beats new production :lol:
 
MetalHeadMike said:
Knock on wood...I've only ever had one power tube failure and a handful of preamp tubes shit the bed over 17 years and 58 amps. Maybe I'm odd man out.
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I'm in the same exact boat as you actually. I have had some vintage powertubes fail me, but still prefer their sound. I've had a good amount of EHX pre-amp tubes fail me and don't like their sound anyway
 
I've had issues with the TAD Redbase stuff in a couple of amps that I have gotten over the past 2 years, both EL-34 and 6L6. Even the replacement sets sent to me had issues as well. Some of the Chinese 12AX7s that have come stock in the amps have crapped out pretty quickly as well. Not easy to find good reliable tubes these days.
 
braintheory said:
I'm in the same exact boat as you actually. I have had some vintage powertubes fail me, but still prefer their sound. I've had a good amount of EHX pre-amp tubes fail me and don't like their sound anyway
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I'll ad that 99% of the tubes I've run in all those amps and over all those years have been JJ...LOL!
 
I try to avoid EXH and Chinese 12AX7s whenever possible. Though I know there are some decent Chinese tubes out there.
 
What's a bummer for the OP statement is that Mesa boasts about some tube tester that they had developed with an aerospace company and that it is so good that it can predict the life of a tube...

So, given that statement apparently they knew ahead of time that they wouldn't last :ROFLMAO: ...?
 
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