v1 pre amp tubes

[rusman75089]

hey guys, i was wondering about a good tube to put in the drive stage of a mesa boogie triple rect 3 channel. in play mostly heavy metal and hard rock. i have heard that tungsol 12ax7 is pretty good.

 

[mikey383]

The best one I've found was a Mullard 7025. Not a reissue, but an old used one that I picked up on Ebay for a few bucks. The top end is great, there's a nice midrange, and the lows are full.

Aside from that, I like the Chinese 9th generation Shuguang 12AX7s, old RCAs also.

I don't recommend JJ ECC83s in V1. IMO, they're too dark to work well in V1, however they do sound great in other positions.

 

[jdurso]

hey guys, i was wondering about a good tube to put in the drive stage of a mesa boogie triple rect 3 channel. in play mostly heavy metal and hard rock. i have heard that tungsol 12ax7 is pretty good.

I find it just takes a lot of experimenting... tubes react different in every amp, so what works for someone may not work for you.

With that said here are some of my favs:

Sylvania 12ax7 Shot Plate - Lots of headroom, smooth highs, nice mids and lots of clarity. Breakup point is higher so it stays clearer longer which can be good or bad depending on what your going for. i like lots of headroom so thats why i use it in V1

RFT ecc83 - Great highs, very smooth and a low breakup point so you get more tube compression at lower volumes. Great for metal and hard rock due to the low breakup point and the smooth highs contribute a very musical high gain IMO.

Siemens ecc83 Short Plate - This is a favorite right behind the Sylvania for V1. It has the most lively tone, with very sweet mids and bell like highs, with a very rich harmonic content. Also this is a very clear sounding tube with tons of note definition and lots of character.

These are all NOS tubes so you'll have to look around for them but you can grab then between $7-$20 a tube.

 

[KH Guitar Freak]

Try the Mesa SPAX7 preamp...

 

[R_ADKINS80]

NOS =C= silver boxed plates here.....beats out all of my vintage tubes for anything high gain and heavy....even my RFT's.

 

[theearthisourfeast]

i searched around on the net for a while for the tubes jdurso recommended, but the only ones i found were quite a bit more $$$ than 7-20$. I've been thinking of retubing the whole thing with either el 34's or kt-77's. I was looking at the high gain sets from eurotubes and they seem like a decent deal. When they pick the high gain tubes for v1 etc does this mean they break up earlier or that they can produce more gain than the normal sets? Also, i keep hearing rectifier tubes rarely go bad. When i tap on mine, two of them sound like a burned out light bulb. Is that normal?

 

[jdurso]

i searched around on the net for a while for the tubes jdurso recommended, but the only ones i found were quite a bit more $$$ than 7-20$. I've been thinking of retubing the whole thing with either el 34's or kt-77's. I was looking at the high gain sets from eurotubes and they seem like a decent deal. When they pick the high gain tubes for v1 etc does this mean they break up earlier or that they can produce more gain than the normal sets? Also, i keep hearing rectifier tubes rarely go bad. When i tap on mine, two of them sound like a burned out light bulb. Is that normal?

Just keep searching... the deals are out there, its fishing through the cork sniffer auctions thats a pain.

 

[theearthisourfeast]

yeah i'll definately keep searching. how about the other questions above?

 

[ltd2recto]

Im probably in the minority here but I like the JJecc83s in V1. To my ears it cuts some of the fizzy high end & boost the mids a little. The same tube in V3 cut too much bass. Never tried it in V2.

 

[theearthisourfeast]

So i picked up a few diferent 12ax7s, only ones i could find locally, just to play around with them (and all but the mesa were cheap). Got one mesa chinese 12ax7, one sovtek 12ax7lps, one sovtek 12ax7 wa, one sovtek 12ax7wxt+. tried all of them in the v1 slot, liked the wxt+ the best (though this is all at pretty low volumes). Then i swapped the wxt+ to v2, v3, and v5 and i have to say i really like it in v5 at lower volume. Haven't got around to mixing and matching in other positions yet. Any suggestions? also, will having a tube that i'm not sure is balanced in v5 hurt anything?

 

[fluff191]

If you arent sure its a balanced 12ax7, a safe bet is the Electro-Harmonix 12ax7.....Thats what I use and it works great.

I have tried a few different tubes in V1, and my favorite is the Shuguang (Chinese) 12ax7 (aka the Mesa Chinese) or the Electro-Harmonix. The rest of the pos. sound really good with either JJ's or the Shuguangs. I have some Tung-Sol's I am about to try as well.

 

[Metaltastic]

+1 for the Shuguangs, definitely my favorite (not as harsh as the Tung Sol, not as dark as the JJ, but I can't stress enough that these are pretty subtle differences, a Recto is a Recto ) - I actually use the Penta Labs 12AX7's from www.dougstubes.com, since they take the best of the Shuguang 9th gens and just relabel 'em!

 

[fluff191]

I actually use the Penta Labs 12AX7's from http://www.dougstubes.com, since they take the best of the Shuguang 9th gens and just relabel 'em!

Really? Wow I didn't know that! Thanks for that bit of info!