Let's Talk Tubes

[Dale B]

I haven't posted much in the last year. Needless to say, I've been busy.

Anyway, I haven't paid much attention in regard to current production tubes. Shame on me! Tubes used to be my thing. I've read about a lot of the current production offerings, but reading will only get one so far. What kind of experience have you guys been having? I've noticed a lot of cool looking stuff hitting the market from New Sensor. Anyway, I'm going to post a list. If you've had any experiences, good or bad, with any of them, let me know.

New Sensor Amperex Ecc83
TAD 7025
7025s variant from The Tube Store
JJ 6550
JJ 6ca7
JJ KT77 - ( I know these had small pin outs. Have they corrected this?)
New Sensor Amperex KT77

Also, has reliability slacked off with the other JJ tubes? 6L6GC, EL34, E34L, etc.?
How about =C=? I know the price has shot up a lot because they're not producing as much and the dollar has tanked.
Other New Sensor offerings such as the Tung Sol, Mullard, EH, Sovtek.

I look forward to hearing your replies. Try to refrain from any pissing matches. I'm just looking for real world situations pertaining to your own usage. Any impressions in regard to how your tone changed would be greatly appreciated. All of us who migrated over here from the old HCAF used to break down our rigs like a forensic accountant looking for dirty money being sent to drug dealers.

Let's hear it!

 

[glpg80]

i recently had the chance to look at a new quad of TAD 6L6GC's and TAD 7025's and compare them with JJECC83's, 83S's, 83S gold pins, and various other preamp tubes.

TAD poweramp tubes are german made and constructed like a tank. those tubes are so well made - they blow away electro-harmonix tubes in terms of quality. high grade plate coatings, dual getter design, ribbed plates, etc.

TAD powertubes offer a clear attitude - think clean character of the whole tube itself - just stepped out of the shower clean-ness to your tone

kinda like that clean character you get with a single coil thats unpotted and you get that cry when you do a dig-end bend - that kind of clean character under the notes but "on" at all times. huge amounts of low end capability - actually had to bias these a little warmer to help get rid of the low end in the amplifier.

TAD preamp tubes offer the same ordeal - very clean character under the gain. works great in later stages of the preamp, would not recommend as a V1 tube though.

winged C's (SED) have doubled in price, they are getting way up there. i know a few people have mentioned that Ruby makes a powertube of equal build/quality but at half the price, so they are going for those instead. IMHO i have always had reliability problems with Ruby anything, my past experiences with them are pretty sour for 6L6 based tubes. YMMV.

i actually hate gold pins - i was like everyone else in this forum saying you couldnt hear a difference and it was snake oil - but it actually is a difference when you have the amplifier at volume. it shifts the low mids even lower - like a knotch - but in a bad way. much prefer regular pin preamp tubes. every gold pin tube my buddy had of the same exact brand/type had that notch, change to the same exact brand/type/make but without the gold pins, and the notch was gone.

 

[Ventura]

TAD7025 are awesome.
Preferred Series 7025s from Jon at thetubestore.com, equally as good in quality, a little less gain. I asked him if these were the same tube just rebranded - he said similar construction, different factory, his tubes - the preferred series - have a better QC process, apparently.

For the record, I don't buy rebrands. My Mak4 just arrived with JJ's in it and I think I'll be pulling 'em out and going with high-grade Shuguang/Chinese. Why, you ask?? Because I don't like JJ's. I may go Chinese, I may go Tung Sol, I may go preferred series, whatever... Just saying.

As for the power tubes? In no particular order - Gold Lion, Winged =C=, Tung Sol.

Peace,
V.

 

[glpg80]

personal power tube preference - SED =C's=, Sovtek 6L6GC's, TAD 6L6GC-SCR's

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

I haven't posted much in the last year. Needless to say, I've been busy.

Anyway, I haven't paid much attention in regard to current production tubes. Shame on me! Tubes used to be my thing. I've read about a lot of the current production offerings, but reading will only get one so far. What kind of experience have you guys been having? I've noticed a lot of cool looking stuff hitting the market from New Sensor. Anyway, I'm going to post a list. If you've had any experiences, good or bad, with any of them, let me know.

New Sensor Amperex Ecc83
TAD 7025
7025s variant from The Tube Store
JJ 6550
JJ 6ca7
JJ KT77 - ( I know these had small pin outs. Have they corrected this?)
New Sensor Amperex KT77

Also, has reliability slacked off with the other JJ tubes? 6L6GC, EL34, E34L, etc.?
How about =C=? I know the price has shot up a lot because they're not producing as much and the dollar has tanked.
Other New Sensor offerings such as the Tung Sol, Mullard, EH, Sovtek.

I look forward to hearing your replies. Try to refrain from any pissing matches. I'm just looking for real world situations pertaining to your own usage. Any impressions in regard to how your tone changed would be greatly appreciated. All of us who migrated over here from the old HCAF used to break down our rigs like a forensic accountant looking for dirty money being sent to drug dealers.

Let's hear it!

I haven't tried all of the new stuff out there but I try to keep up at a distance anyway, I usually don't buy any new releases right out of the gate, I don't want to pay to test them When you say New Sensor Amperex I think you're referring to the new Gold Lion stuff that they are offering? I haven't tried any of them yet but I'm gonna grab some of the kt66's soon, I looooove the real genelex kt66 and I'm lucky enough to own a stash of them. I've heard good things about the new gold lion 66, I'm not banking on them being just like the real deal, it's easy enough to see that they are pretty different from the old ones construction wise but if they sound pretty good and work I'll take em.

The TAD 6l6's are great, both the tall bottle and short bottle. The tall ones are the closest I've heard to an old Sylvania str 387, not quite as clean and don't make quite as much power but that is just nitpicking. The short bottle TAD is unreal for a modern tube imo. It's a nice sonic cross between a short GE greyplate and RCA blackplates to my ear, just a great tube. I've only tried one of the new TAD 7025's but it's good, it's made in china for them and it is a different flavor than the standard chinese 12ax7. Certainly worth trying, mine seemed to have a little bit of crosstalk in some circuits but it was pretty much a non issue in most amps. That's just one anyway, hardly a good sampling. I'm pretty sure the Tube Store 7025 is the same tube, it sure looks just like it.

JJ's are certainly a bit more spotty these days, but if you have a good tube vendor that weeds out the ones with problems you should be good, same as with everything else. I haven't tried any of their new offerings, one of the other techs I know put a set of the 6ca7's in a musicman and had one die in burn in but he said they sounded really good and seemed to hold up once he replaced the dud. Those musicmans are really high on the plate voltage but the screen voltage is much lower, they are still known to eat crappy tubes though, who knows. Someone did a pretty good review of the 6ca7 over on the amp garage site if I recall. I tried the JJ kt77's once but that was enough for me, the pair I got was junk, you could tell that no care was taken in making the thing just looking at it, one of them died real quick under very easy conditions. I bought those from a good vendor, makes me wonder about the ones that got rejected, it's hard to imagine them being much worse. Their preamp tubes don't seem to last long without developing strange noises these days.

I like the tung sol 12ax7 very much but they can be bad about hum, they are just fine with dc or elevated heaters though. I do think that they are one of the most harmonically rich current 12ax7's in most amps anyway, they just have a little more going on. Just like most of the new sensor 12ax7's they don't like having much of a voltage difference between the heater and cathode and they can die in cathode followers and some phase inverters. Elevated heaters can fix that but I probably wouldn't mod an amp that didn't need it just to run them. I haven't tried any of the other TS tubes. Well tested sovtek LPS 12ax7's are still good and the sovtek wb's, wa's and whatnot are still rugged as hell but they lack gain and tend to get the snap crackle pops and other intermittent junk in the background.

Winged C's are still ok if you want to pay for them I guess, one of the better sounding el34's out the if you want fat and rich but they don't quite bark like the classics, none of the new ones do imo. We really need a reasonably priced modern el34 that sounds correct but it doesn't exist. I'll take the TAD 6l6's over the =C='s but that's just personal preference in tone, the price difference sure as heck doesn't hurt though.

That's about all I've got on the newer stuff, I'm sure you know the dance, buy from a good vendor and ask the right questions. I'm sure some of that was redundant info being as you've been into this stuff before, just trying to cover the bases.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

TAD poweramp tubes are german made and constructed like a tank. those tubes are so well made - they blow away electro-harmonix tubes in terms of quality. high grade plate coatings, dual getter design, ribbed plates, etc.

Matt, those 6l6's are made by Shuguang in China. TAD claims that they are engineered in Germany, whatever they are doing they are doing something right. I'm pretty sure the last tubes ever made in Germany (at least the types we care about) were made by RFT and that ended before the Berlin wall fell as far as I know.

 

[Dale B]

personal power tube preference - SED =C's=, Sovtek 6L6GC's, TAD 6L6GC-SCR's

It's kind of odd that I like the Sovteks too. They may not sound as great as some of the others, but I enjoy the squishy feel and give they have in certain amps.

The only TADs I have are the WGBs, but the set I have is a little hotter than normal. I need to pick some up that fall closer to normal specs.

All of the SED power tubes are great!

 

[Dale B]

TAD poweramp tubes are german made and constructed like a tank. those tubes are so well made - they blow away electro-harmonix tubes in terms of quality. high grade plate coatings, dual getter design, ribbed plates, etc.

Matt, those 6l6's are made by Shuguang in China. TAD claims that they are engineered in Germany, whatever they are doing they are doing something right. I'm pretty sure the last tubes ever made in Germany (at least the types we care about) were made by RFT and that ended before the Berlin wall fell as far as I know.

Thanks for chiming in, Nigel! Yes, I was referring to the Gold Lion stuff. Maybe my mind is telling me to pick up some NOS Amperex stuff.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

TAD poweramp tubes are german made and constructed like a tank. those tubes are so well made - they blow away electro-harmonix tubes in terms of quality. high grade plate coatings, dual getter design, ribbed plates, etc.

Matt, those 6l6's are made by Shuguang in China. TAD claims that they are engineered in Germany, whatever they are doing they are doing something right. I'm pretty sure the last tubes ever made in Germany (at least the types we care about) were made by RFT and that ended before the Berlin wall fell as far as I know.

Thanks for chiming in, Nigel! Yes, I was referring to the Gold Lion stuff. Maybe my mind is telling me to pick up some NOS Amperex stuff.

Nothing wrong with that, the Herleen Ecc83 is one of my favorites.