Best preamp tube?

[tung]

I'm trying to replace some bad preamp tubes on both my RM100 head and my RM50 combo.
The JJ preamp tubes in my RM100 sounds great, love them. Tried Svetlana and EH and it makes the head sounds more buzzy, no good for high gain modules, too much fuzziness.
Any suggestions? Tung Sol preamp tubes?
Thanks in advance

 

[TheAbomb12]

Hi, Tung-Sol 12ax7s tubes are awesome. Can't tell how they are for randall products; But I use them throughout my Engl Powerball- and I get Fender-like cleans and Great low-noise distortion.

 

[khingpynn]

I'm using tung sols as my current "new tube" fav in everything... in short they add clarity and prevent harshness in the top end. Many of the Randall mods are treble voiced ala Marshall so the tung sol's end smoothing things out nicely and they are very low noise. The JJ are cool too but not as nice a top end to my ears they are quiet tho. Sovtek are also very good and come in second to tung sol for me.

My absolute fav preamp tube are Sylvania's from the late 50's and 60's. I also like NOS tung sol, RCA, GE ( ones with five stars especially ), Raytheon, and mullards. The Westinghouse and telkefunkens are not my thing for sure with the telefunkens not having as long a life as the others.

I find the EH tubes to be very buzzy and not last long... some ppl hear them as smooth but I have not tried one yet that I would describe as smooth.

I'm also a huge fan of 5751's ( 75% less gain than a 12AX7 )especially NOS Sylvania and GE.

But ya know it all comes down to personal taste... try as many as you can... stay away from PM tubes.

Khing

 

[tung]

Thanks for all the input. One of the reason I'm still with the MTS stuff is the fact that I can experiment with tubes until I find my "Holy Grail" combination.
As far as preamp tubes are concerned, I love the JJ, but the Tung Sol seem to be getting rave feedback, haven't heard anything negative about them yet. Going to the Tubestore on Tues. Hopefully the Tung Sol will do the trick? :lol:

 

[3 Mile Stone]

+1 on that GE 5751. A super sounding tube. Try one of those in V1 spot and Mullard in V2. I like it in my MOD effects loop send tube these days. Nice. I fell in love with the Tung Sol 5881 power tubes, which from what I can tell, Frank & Bruce loading all MOD 50 with as standard issue these days. I really need to order some of those 12AX7 Tung Sols though.

 

[tung]

. I fell in love with the Tung Sol 5881 power tubes, which from what I can tell, Frank & Bruce loading all MOD 50 with as standard issue these days. I really need to order some of those 12AX7 Tung Sols though.

I know that the TS 5881 is a big hit with a lot of you guys. I take it that the Tung Sol 12AX7 will yield great results. As Khingpin pointed out, if they smooth out the high end and give it more clarity, it'll be ideal for the Randall . I have a real problem without a JJ preamp tube in there right now, the whole thing sounded real fuzzy compared to before, harmonic spectrum is just not as defined.
Steve Baldwin is sending me some JJ 12AX7s to replace the defective tube, so I want to check out the Tung Sol to see what result I can get from these.

 

[maximus1]

i thought the tungsol 12ax7's were way harsh , turned the distortion in my 1086 to cardboard. just what i thought, i like the main pre amp tube on the chassis to be a jj and the rest on the chassis to be eh's, then in the modules i like to find combonations. in my 1086 its 2 eh's , my modern a jj in v1 and an eh in v2 and for my recto its 2 tungsols or a tung sol and an eh'. the eh's have lush harmonics i think but can be overpowering sometimes. just what i like after a year and half of constant swapping , works for me. sovtek wb's are terrible!

 

[tung]

i thought the tungsol 12ax7's were way harsh , turned the distortion in my 1086 to cardboard. just what i thought, i like the main pre amp tube on the chassis to be a jj and the rest on the chassis to be eh's, then in the modules i like to find combonations. in my 1086 its 2 eh's , my modern a jj in v1 and an eh in v2 and for my recto its 2 tungsols or a tung sol and an eh'. the eh's have lush harmonics i think but can be overpowering sometimes. just what i like after a year and half of constant swapping , works for me. sovtek wb's are terrible!

Thanks for your input, bro. Greatly appreciated. I fuckin hated the Sovteks as well
Got the Tung Sol preamp tubes yesterday. Haven't had time to really check it out, but it does clean up the grainniness much more than the EH and the Sovteks, but I don't know if it's any better than the JJ.
I will be doing some swapping with the modules to get some good combination. I'll try the Tung Sol in my XTC to see what'll happen.
Will post some reports when I put in sufficient time test drive these tubes.

 

[tung]

Well, i've been running the Tung Sol in my preamp section on the RM100, I actually went back to the JJs. The Tung Sols are clean and give the sound lots of clarity, especially in the mids. But i thought the JJ has a little bit more dirt and harmonics , slightly more character and breath . But the Tung Sol sounds nice though, I put them in my DLX module and it improved the sound significantly, more fuller.
Any recomendation for power tubes/preamp tubes for a Fender Twin? I'm going to experiment with that next.

 

[maximus1]

never tried but people rave about the groove tubes 12ax7m, mullard reissue.

 

[GtrGear]

The GT12ax7-M is my favorite as inputstage and phase inverter.

Also favorite on the more higher gain modules.
GT12ax7-C for the clean and breakup modules.

Sometimes I mix them like in the SL2.
C in the gainstage and M in the EQ stage.