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Post subject: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 12:01 pm
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I have posted elsewhere on this forum about the poor quality tubes in the DRRI I bought new a couple of months ago. Three of the four 12AX7 tubes (V1, V2 and V4) have all had to be replaced because they were either microphonic or excessively noisy. (All were Groove Tubes). So, the question is what tubes do I replace them with?

Before buying my first Fender amp in March, I had been a user of Peavey Classic amps for many years but only during the last year did I experiment with different tubes. With one exception I tried only new production tubes from JJ, Sovtek, EHX, Tung-Sol and some unbranded Chinese tubes that came with one of the amps. I tried both 12AX7 and 5751 tubes. Longplates and normal plates. The exception was a NOS JAN Phillips 5751.

If you believe everything you read on the internet then there is a noticeable difference in tone for just about every type of tube but my experience is that they all sound very much alike and whatever difference there is can be compensated for by tweaking the tone and/or volume controls on the amp and/or guitar.

So does it matter what new tubes I put in my DRRI or will it sound the same whatever I use? If you ignore those that are sub-standard, are those tubes that have been properly tested basically all the same?

With so many components in the signal chain from pick to speaker, is the tube really that important in developing tone? Fact or hype?


Last edited by fifty4 on Wed May 06, 2015 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 12:52 pm
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I find there is a pretty big difference in tone, and reliability between different brands. I've been a fan of JJ's. I've gotten a few bad one's lately. I have NOS JAN Phillips 5751 in a couple of my amps and they've been great and quiet too. Mullard, EH and many others are great. It's something that's very subjective. I've never had any luck with GT's.

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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 3:41 pm
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Yes of course the tubes will make a difference in your amp. I have had very good luck both in tone and reliability with Tube Amp Dr's (TAD) for power tubes. For preamp tubes I really like Sovtek's 12AX7 WXT's, and Electro Harmonix (EH) and if you got the cash, the Gold Lion tubes are quite tuneful.

And if you are willing to spend more money, RCA, Mullard, GE, JAN, or Phillips New Old Stock tubes are what your reissue amps vintage brothers came with when new back in the day.

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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 9:17 pm
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I've rolled more than a few tubes in my day, and I can definitely tell a difference in the tone/sound between brands. Some brands are closer to each other in sound than others, but still have subtle differences between them. Sometimes the sound will be similar between two different tubes, but one might have better high or mids or lows than the other.

For the DRRI in particular, V1 for the normal channel and V2 for the Vibrato channel, I tried about a dozen or so different 12AX7s in each spot, and actually tried some brands a few times, switching back and forth, playing with each swap to listen to the sound. For this amp, the V2 spot (Vibrato channel) got a TAD 7025WA because I liked the sound of it better than all others that I tried. For V1 (Normal channel) I wanted a little different sound, and this channel sounds a little different anyway, so I went with a Mullard RI which gave me the sound that I was after for that channel.

It really depends on the amp, the position in that amp, and personal preference as to which type of tube might sound better. Typically, the first preamp tube position in an amp's signal chain is going to have the most impact on tone, and one can tell the difference between tubes more easily. The second, third, etc, tube positions don't have as much impact on tone, so swapping tubes in these positions might not make such a notable difference in sound between tube brands.

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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 1:56 am
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I use modern tubes without any issue .


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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 3:00 am
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Thank you for the comments.

I accept that there can be differences in tube tone if nothing else changes but my contention is that they can all be made to sound more or less the same by adjusting the various controls on the guitar and amp.

So far I have tried Tung-Sol 12AX7 RI, GT-12AX7-M and JJ ECC83S in V1 and V2 of my DRRI. All supposedly very different tubes and yet I have had no trouble in getting my desired tone from all of them simply by tweaking the EQ.

I agree that reliability is very important so for me I think this will be my primary consideration.


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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 3:27 am
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If it were that simple, we wouldn't need various brands of tubes. There is much more to the differences than any EQ section can deal with. Tung Sol and Mullard RI are very close in sound though, so that one would be a tough call.

Try a TAD 7025WA, and a few others for comparison and you might hear much more of a difference.

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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 5:27 am
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fifty4 wrote:
Thank you for the comments.

I accept that there can be differences in tube tone if nothing else changes but my contention is that they can all be made to sound more or less the same by adjusting the various controls on the guitar and amp.

So far I have tried Tung-Sol 12AX7 RI, GT-12AX7-M and JJ ECC83S in V1 and V2 of my DRRI. All supposedly very different tubes and yet I have had no trouble in getting my desired tone from all of them simply by tweaking the EQ.

I agree that reliability is very important so for me I think this will be my primary consideration.


It's not that easy. The amps dynamics, noise floor and natural distortion characteristics are dictated by the tubes. For example I just replaced the JJ EL84's in my 18 watt Marshall clone with The Tube Store's 7189 Preferred Series power tubes. What happened there was I got a little more headroom and note articulation and the sound is more "in your face", but it seems like I list some of the EL84's tonal complexity. I'm on the fence with then. The 7189 is supposed to be a bit more robust and reliable. The Marshall 18 watt amps run pretty hot and I generally push this amp pretty hard. I've also been finding some JJ's 12ax7's getting pretty noisy. I don't know if their QC is getting sloppy or what. I was always a huge fan of JJ's but now I think it's time to try some different things or go NOS.

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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 9:12 am
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I would agree that modern tubes mostly sound about the same. I prefer JJ for low microphonics. Gold label JJ for lower noise.

That being said, vintage tubes by Telefunken, Ampeg Bugle Boys and EI smooth plate 12AX7s have superiot musical qualities.

I can talk to customers till I'm blue in the face about quality tubes, but when I put in a couple Telefunkens in their amp, it only takes five seconds for the look on their face to brighten up and recognize the difference quality tubes make.

I get comments like, "This takes me to the next level" and ," I used to hang it up after an hour from the headaches it gave me. Now it sounds so sweet, I'm late for work."

It's not hype.

Most tube components are just bare metal. The plates have coatings that help absorb electrons. The noise you hear from a tube is the sound of electrons bouncing off the plates. I chalk up the superior sound to the quality of the coatings.
Otherwise identical tubes can have different coatings and there's no way to tell, except for lower noise and better sound.

To my non-musician ears, it's not so apparent when its just strumety-strum. I can mostly tell the difference when the right hand comes down hard and the left lifts the strings to the breaking point. Most tubes will break up and crash the tone. Good tubes will play through.


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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Sun May 10, 2015 11:52 am
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fifty4 wrote:
I have posted elsewhere on this forum about the poor quality tubes in the DRRI I bought new a couple of months ago. Three of the four 12AX7 tubes (V1, V2 and V4) have all had to be replaced because they were either microphonic or excessively noisy. (All were Groove Tubes). So, the question is what tubes do I replace them with?

Before buying my first Fender amp in March, I had been a user of Peavey Classic amps for many years but only during the last year did I experiment with different tubes. With one exception I tried only new production tubes from JJ, Sovtek, EHX, Tung-Sol and some unbranded Chinese tubes that came with one of the amps. I tried both 12AX7 and 5751 tubes. Longplates and normal plates. The exception was a NOS JAN Phillips 5751.

If you believe everything you read on the internet then there is a noticeable difference in tone for just about every type of tube but my experience is that they all sound very much alike and whatever difference there is can be compensated for by tweaking the tone and/or volume controls on the amp and/or guitar.

So does it matter what new tubes I put in my DRRI or will it sound the same whatever I use? If you ignore those that are sub-standard, are those tubes that have been properly tested basically all the same?

With so many components in the signal chain from pick to speaker, is the tube really that important in developing tone? Fact or hype?


Speakers can make a bigger impact on tone and usually do compared to tubes.
Still tubes do make a difference, and with Fender amps the changes are more prominent than most other amps especially compared to high gain amps, which of course most Fender amps are not.

I have a collection of about 15+ pre tubes of various 12ax7, 12at7, 5751, some are modern some are vintage.
Some of the modern built tubes sound better than some of the vintage tubes, but I don't own any really pricey NOS vintage pre's so I can speak to those.
As for power tubes there are also differences there are as well even among same types such 6L6's or 6V6's.
I find power tubes differences can be a bit more subtle but it's there.

The only way for any player to answer the question you ask is to get some different tubes and start swapping, play, and listen. If you don't hear any difference or it doesn't matter to you, then you're good to as you won't need to spend any more time and money into tube swapping. :)
Those who do hear differences can likely count on spending more time and money to hear what else is out there
I've slowed way down on my tube swaps and spend much more time playing and enjoying my Fender amps.


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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Mon May 11, 2015 2:44 am
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My decision has been made. I chose not to buy any new tubes instead I tried the spares I already had, some of which were new or had no more than a couple of hours use. I have put JJ ECC83S in V1 and V2. I really could not detect any noticeable difference in tone between the JJs and the other brands I tried but in the past I have found them to be quiet and reliable.

The only other brand I may try some day because I have heard good things about them (not least from Matt Schofield's guitar builder!) is TAD.


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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Mon May 11, 2015 7:53 am
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The thing to remember is with tubes, the characteristics of the tubes will come about when you push them into distortion. Tube distortion varies widely, but if you never really push an amp that hard, I doubt you'll hear that big of a difference. For Classic Rock and Blues, I rarely use a pedal so tube choice matters to me and I can clearly hear differences even with my half deaf ears. Some tubes offer warmer smoother distortion, some gritty, stinging and harsh, some are smooth, some have a "chimey" tone to them. Tube Bias is another factor too. But if nine of this matters to you, my top priority would be reliability.

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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 3:05 pm
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Time to eat some humble pie and admit I got it wrong. Not all tubes are the same!

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to try buy some TAD tubes (7025WA highgrade type RT080) which I put in V1 and V2 of my DRRI. I also bought a TAD ECC83 WA Premium Selected (type RT008) for V4. The amp now sounds quite different to other tube combinations I have tried. Only played at home so far but it has great tone and clarity. Can't wait to get it in the rehearsal studio and crank it up a bit!


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Post subject: Re: Tubes/Valves - Fact or Hype?
Posted: Wed May 27, 2015 5:50 pm
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The TAD 7025WA sounds great in the DR. :D

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