New Single Rec Owner(YEAH!!) now I need to know something..

[Acesofbelkan]

I bought my precious mint Single Rectifier. Sounds great! But whenever I buy a used tube amp I ALWAYS swap out the tubes. Don't know what the last owner put em' through so I just want to be safe.
I currently have these tubes spared from a Marshall I had them installed on:
4- Svetlana EL34's
2-electro harmonix 12ax7s
1-(high gain)Mullard 12ax7
1-(balanced)tung-sol 12ax7

I'm not limiting myself to the current spare tubes I have but if anyone suggest I use one of these just let me know guys.

I love METAL and high-gain. What preamp/power tubes do you guys reccomend I replace this thing with?

I'm proud to be part of the Mesa family by the way :mrgreen:

 

[BostonRedSox]

IMHO, Mesa branded tubes sound fantastic so I usually stick with those. I've researched this topic enough on this forum and found many people giving high ratings to Doug's Tubes Recto tube selections. If you go to his website, you can find more concise information. I've also read that he is very knowledgeable, so perhaps you could also shoot him an email about your playing style, amp, guitar, cab, and tonal hopes/desires.

Good luck.

 

[Acesofbelkan]

Yeah, honestly I was thinking it's a wise choice to just stick with all mesa tubes. But I've read on this site after searching for a while about preamp tube choices how mesa switches the tubes they choose to re-brand and how overpriced they are.

Most likely I'll just change the powertubes first since those suckers are always the first to go. I'll give the website a check too.

 

[Acesofbelkan]

Oh, and one more thing I forgot to mention. The tubes in the mesa I own now, they say Chinese on them. I've read someone else on here had it say Russian. whats your opinion on these Chinese labeled preamp tubes?

 

[BostonRedSox]

With my Roadster I swapped out all preamp tubes that said Chinese or Russian on them, for the newer Mesa preamp tubes that just read "12ax7. These are repackaged JJ's and they sound fabulous with my Roadster. In slots V1 and V2 I put in the SP12ax7 Mesa branded preamp tubes just to make sure I am doing all that I can to limit any high gain hiss and hum from my amp.

 

[BostonRedSox]

More concisel, my Roadster only came with one Chinese tube, which crapped out not too long afterwards. I switched it out, but honestly, didn't hear a difference. I know that the older Mesa tubes that were marked as Chinese and Russian weren't as reliable in some V-spots as the newer JJ packaged Mesa tubes. Always check your tubes before buying to be sure that you aren't getting older stock Mesa tubes that are not JJs.

See ya!