Why are some Mesa preamp tubes marked....

[budlovesaly]

Why are some preamp tubes (Mesa branded) marked as Russian or Chinese, yet some just say 12ax7?

 

[MusicManJP6]

The newest ones that just say '12ax7' are actually JJs! The others are just marked to tell where they were produced...

 

[KH Guitar Freak]

Call me crazy, but I always prefer those Russian 2s... :lol:

 

[Heritage Softail]

I was pulling tubes out of the used Single Rec I just got and it had two of the those 12s marked Russian 2, had Sovtek 6L6s in the power end though. Were those ever stock in a Boogie?

 

[Barry]

I remember a couple years ago there was a problem with the Russian ones especially with the V3 socket and Mesa suggested replacing those with the chinese version, and it made big difference for me .