tube recommendations for various modules- sticky?

[SacredGroove]

Basically there's one "general rule" to keep in mind when selecting your pre tubes and aranging the order of how they are placed (..in the modules..). When I was experimenting with the different brands\flavors, I had alot of feedback froom Doug at Doug's Tubes.

For the modules, Doug suggested following this method. Your v1 should be the TONE tube, and then make the v2 the DRIVE tube. When you consider it, same as a signal from the guitar. Pickups generate the tone, then drive the signal with the OD of your choice.

The PI tube should be of a better quality brand (as in Julia's decision for the JAN)...I think what comes stock in the RM's is a EH12AX7 (...I think...) which is also a very good tube.

I agree with Julia about the ECC being dark (and sorta muddy sounding), so I have been sticking with TSol's in v1 and either a c8\c9 or EH12ax7 in v2. This seems to be the combo of choice for my liking. I have used the JAN in my SuperV, with a TSol in v2...and WOW....it was sweet! :wink: ...next is to place the JAN in the PI.

Anyways, there's my 2 cents worth!

Pedro

In my SuperV, I have a 12au7 (V1) and 12ax7 (V2). If I swapped their positions I should get less gain?

 

[Pedro]

In my SuperV, I have a 12au7 (V1) and 12ax7 (V2). If I swapped their positions I should get less gain?

Not necessarily. The way I read into it, and based on what Doug explained to me as well as my online research, is this.

If you use a HGain tube in v1, what you use in v2 will only emphasize that "high gain" sound...not diminish it. This is why it seems to be "best practice" to find the tone with your v1 selection, and then drive it with your gain tube of choice in v2....if that makes sense :lol:

I recently swapped my tubes in the XL mod I have. I usually run TSol's in v1 and a chinese or EH in v2. I placed a c\8 in v1 and the TSol in v2... just curious. The gain was great...but it was "all over the place". Clarity was gone and wasn't "defined" enough for my tastes. Now this was a quick test...I didn't really spend much time dialing in a bunch of settings at loud volumes to really check it out...I'll be doing this soon, but getting as close to your tone with a good pre tube in v1 is your best bet. I'd stick with the 12au7 you have in v1...12ay7's are also great for clean and alot of headroom. Then try some lower gain tubes for v2 to just keep it on the clean side. :wink:

Hope this helps!

Pedro

 

[SacredGroove]

In my SuperV, I have a 12au7 (V1) and 12ax7 (V2). If I swapped their positions I should get less gain?

Not necessarily. The way I read into it, and based on what Doug explained to me as well as my online research, is this.

If you use a HGain tube in v1, what you use in v2 will only emphasize that "high gain" sound...not diminish it. This is why it seems to be "best practice" to find the tone with your v1 selection, and then drive it with your gain tube of choice in v2....if that makes sense :lol:

I recently swapped my tubes in the XL mod I have. I usually run TSol's in v1 and a chinese or EH in v2. I placed a c\8 in v1 and the TSol in v2... just curious. The gain was great...but it was "all over the place". Clarity was gone and wasn't "defined" enough for my tastes. Now this was a quick test...I didn't really spend much time dialing in a bunch of settings at loud volumes to really check it out...I'll be doing this soon, but getting as close to your tone with a good pre tube in v1 is your best bet. I'd stick with the 12au7 you have in v1...12ay7's are also great for clean and alot of headroom. Then try some lower gain tubes for v2 to just keep it on the clean side. :wink:

Hope this helps!

Pedro

Interesting info, thanks a lot!

 

[bj4rd]

Blackface/KH1. using JJ 12ax7s in v1 and v2 to darken the tone. i have tried 12au7, 12at7, and a 5751 in the v1 position and did not like the tone at all. i will have to try the v2 position and see what happens.

Mr. Scary. tung sol in v1 and ruby in v2. ruby added more usable gain. the tung sol added alot of clarity, i may try this module with 2 tung sols.

 

[MikeT]

Which Ruby do you have?

My Mr Scary came with a pair of Ruby 7025SS (chinese silver series) - there very good tubes. I have a GT 12AX7R3 (=Tung Sol GT branded) - I think I will put one in V1 to brighten and tighten the tone of the Scary like you.

My Brahma which I absolutely love has a pair of JJs. I am going to take the 7025SS and put it in V2 and an Ei 12AX7 in V1 of the Brahma.

Mike

 

[Pedro]

Blackface/KH1. using JJ 12ax7s in v1 and v2 to darken the tone. i have tried 12au7, 12at7, and a 5751 in the v1 position and did not like the tone at all. i will have to try the v2 position and see what happens.

Mr. Scary. tung sol in v1 and ruby in v2. ruby added more usable gain. the tung sol added alot of clarity, i may try this module with 2 tung sols.

Most of my modules came loaded with the JJ's and I'm not a huge fan of them...sounded too muddy imo. I think I'll be getting Some GT's and Ei's next to check them out. I do love the TSol's....I'm running that as my input pretube on the head now. Sounds tighter than the JJ I had in there originally. Made a big difference. :wink:

Pedro

 

[Pedro]

Which Ruby do you have?

My Mr Scary came with a pair of Ruby 7025SS (chinese silver series) - there very good tubes. I have a GT 12AX7R3 (=Tung Sol GT branded) - I think I will put one in V1 to brighten and tighten the tone of the Scary like you.

My Brahma which I absolutely love has a pair of JJs. I am going to take the 7025SS and put it in V2 and an Ei 7025 in V1 of the Brahma.

Mike

My Brahma came loaded with TSol's in both v1 and v2. Sounded slick! All I did was replace my v2 with c8 for a little extra edge and it sounds great now with a little boost form a tscreamer.

I've been hearing alot about these Ei7025's ....but can't find anyone that has them in stock. Recommendations? ... almost time to get my next batch of pre's for more experimentation :lol:

Pedro

 

[tung]

My Brahma came loaded with TSol's in both v1 and v2. Sounded slick! All I did was replace my v2 with c8 for a little extra edge and it sounds great now with a little boost form a tscreamer.

I've been hearing alot about these Ei7025's ....but can't find anyone that has them in stock. Recommendations? ... almost time to get my next batch of pre's for more experimentation :lol:

Pedro

Have you try the Tubestore? they're just around where i live (Hamilton, Canada), got everything there that I looked for, give them a call, great service and fast.

 

[Pedro]

Have you try the Tubestore? they're just around where i live (Hamilton, Canada), got everything there that I looked for, give them a call, great service and fast.

nope....haven't tried....but will for sure! Thanks for the info! :wink:

P

 

[Shinozoku]

Would those be the Yugoslavian 7025s that George Lynch is trying to find an equivalent to for his Brahma Modules?

 

[MikeT]

The Ei 12AX7 is also known as the Yugo 7025 - curently no longer made or available?

A little history as I understand it...I believe these tubes were previously under UN embargo due to the Croatia/Bosnia/Serbia civil war in the early-mid 90's. After the U.S. and NATO took over from the United Nations "Peace Keepers" in the mid-late 90s the violence subsided and these tubes became available again from about 2000-2005. I bought a couple GT branded ones (7025) during this time. I think the Ei factory in Nis Serbia is temporarily(?) shut down for some reason. It would be great to see them for sale again.

Apparently the quality of these tubes in bulk was questionable bad (microphonics) but with tested and relabeled ones I never had any problems with them. I have got a few of these tubes "re-branded" as the following:

Ruby 7025
Groove Tubes 7025
PM 7025

They all have the same construction (glass and guts), just different labeling. From what I recall, these are good musical tubes - bright with high gain.

Mike

 

[JKD]

I have a pair of Ei 7025s that were re-branded under another name....might even be Philips but I'd have to go look in my amp to be sure.

Great sounding tube but I've only really tried it in mid gain modules (Brahma an the like)....didn't care for it in the Mr Scary but that one can be picky about tubes.

Thankfully mine were screened for both high gain and microphonics too

 

[CHASENTONE]

I have a stock treadplate and thought that something just wasnt quite right about the bottom end of it, so I put a set of tung sol r.i. in it and now its fine liked it before love it now.As a general rule of thumb for myself if I have a dark sounding module use a more open on the top end type tube and if you have a bright sounding module then use a dark sounding tube.

 

[Shinozoku]

9985: Could you possibly either put these various tube reviews in the first post, or at least link to the posts with information on what tubes they talk about? That would make the thread easier to navigate

EDIT: Or maybe a format such as...
Amp VI: For tone. Lower gain (does this), higher gain (does this), here are a few tubes that have produced good results (insert list)
Amp V2: Not really important
Amp V3: Same format as V1

Module V1: For tone, lower/higher gain does (this/that), here's a list of preferred tubes with good results.
Module V2: For gain, lower/higher gain does (this/that), (list here)

And a section on power tubes. for example, it would outline how the inner two power tubes generally influence the tone the most (I forgot who told me this, everything would be documented), and how certain mixes affect the sound, and maybe bias ranges that people prefer to use. Once again, you'd have a list of preferred tubes.

And maybe with the lists, we could get information from user reviews here as well as reviews elsewhere (like Ultimate-Guitar and TheTubeStore) and give short, concise descriptions of that tube's noise level, microphonics, and musical detail and dynamics. The information on compatibility with low/mid/high gain modules would be outlined in a kind of umbrella description of certain tube types given at the beginning of the post.

 

[MikeT]

Got around to swapping tubes toninght.

Mr Scary - Started with 2 HG graded Ruby 7025SS (Chinese) tubes. Replaced V1 with a Groove Tube 12AX7R3 (=tungsol RI). Result = same gain but with more focus, clarity and tighter bottom.

Brahma - Pulled out both factory JJ's. Put a Ruby branded Ei/Yugo 12AX7 in V1 and the HG graded Ruby 7025SS from the Mr Scary in V2. Result = this module just took a big dose of steroids! Much more gain, tighter, more bass, rich detailed mids. This swap has blown me away. I'd almost consider this module to be a high gainer now after this tube swap. I really like how it is very gainy but still open and uncompressed sounding - literally makes the rest of my modules sound lame :shock:

Mike

 

[Shinozoku]

Has anyone tried alternate tube combos in Dave/Pete/Anthony modules? It sounds like a good tube change in one of those would be insane

 

[wakeguitar]

I've recently been searching for the best preamp tubes - not entirely happy with new production JJ's/tungsol/mullard.

-noted I've only been testing tubes for clean tones lately (blackface/KH1)

I have been searching for the ultimate input tube (for cleans), not really happy with any of the above until I found 12ax7wa by Jan Philips. 1st impression was AWESOME. It seems perfect for what I wanted - rich and clear. Now, I've only had one for a week now but I think it's great, and I think I want to get more and try them in conjunction with my preamps as well as being in the input positon! At $50 each it's expensive, but if they really are this nice I don't mind paying. (I've also heard that the Sovtek's don't compare to the Jan's)

What do you all think about 12ax7wa's? Do you think they are the $hit (for cleans at least)? Would you use them in both preamp positions as well as the input?

I like the JJ's in the blackface I find them very rich (but possibly muddy); Tungsol's are very tight but dynamics seem lost especially on cleans - I liked 'em for dist though. Mullards are well toned but perhaps I haven't found the best use for them yet...

What are your other ultimate tubes for Input position (NOS included)?

 

[speedemon]

My $.02

The Tweed I swapped came on Fri, so I took it my friend's and we had a 12ax7 swap session. For a cab I used a 2x12 with with a Celestion g12T75 (the stock speaker from Randall) and a Scumback H55 (a 65w version of a Celestion g12h30).

The Mullards I had stuck in the amp made this sound terrible, so they were pulled immediately. I tried a pair of JJs, and had to launder my clothes, mud everywhere. I had previously put a JAN 5751 in the PI, the conventional wisdom.

In the tweed I put a Tung Sol and a JJ, worked nice, not quite 50s tone, but makes a "fitting" sound for what you think "Tweed" should be.

I put the Mullards in my XTC, much more Marshall vibe! That means good!

On a lark I put a Svetlana 12ax7 in V1, a mostly worthless tube in most applications. But...being rather neutral sounding, it provided the best front end for using dirt and clean sounds in the amp at once.

I agree with the above, tubes make enough of a difference in this amp, that it deserves a sticky, with as much detail as people are willing to provide. Perhaps a "tone dictionary" would be useful, so everyone uses the same lingo for "feel". As I was explaining to my g/f last night, some people think Darrell Abbot had the best tone of all time, and some Stevie Ray Vaughan, and some Jimmy Page, so it would help to provide more than "I liked it; I hated it."

Thanks to Julia, Pedro, Shinozuku and others for their contributions at other threads and this one in this area! I am looking forward to more on this topic!

As a final note. After reviewing several web sources, (is it appropriate to reference?) I have concluded that the 12ay7 and 5751 are the most appropriate subs for 12ax7 because of their voltage similarity. Opinions voiced here seem to offer some support for that, even if not for the same reason.


I will conducting my own NOS tube experiments and look forward to sharing my findings!

Good luck!

 

[Mike P]

I was extremely unhappy with the Ruby Tubes and the JJ's (the JJ's more so).

Trace at Voodoo Amps turned me on to the ARS 12ax7's in both the head and the modules and they made a HUGE difference.

The modules and amp are MUCH clearer with far more articulation. Gone is the mud around 1.5k and both the top and bottom are extended.

I'm using the ARS Chinese 12ax7's in all eleven modules in both positions, save the UG Jose, Rectifier and stock Blackface. I'm using JAN/NOS 5751's in V1 of those modules with excellent results.

 

[Julia]

I put the darker JJ 12AX7s in the Mr. Scary and pulled the chinese HG tubes. Result: better clarity and not as bright. Just what I was after.