Re-tubed my DT the other day. was a bit skeptical about having my amp sent back to orange to have the same cheap valves put in it. most orange forum posters have had problems with there DT's valves going with the stock valves. i had a bit of spare dollar, so invested in a set of JJ power and Pre Tubes. Hot Rox did a set for a TT so i brought 2 of those for around £60 in total. arrived quick and well packaged. i installed them last night and had a quick play. today i've given it a break in for about 1-2 hours. no noise, no faults but a big improvement on the sound. the stock sound was pretty good, but this is more dynamic, tighter on the drive sounds and almost fender style on the cleans.
Probably, i should have gone for the free route. but i'm quite happy i did it this way, it's hopefully gonna last a while now. i've always been a bit funny about how much a valve makes a difference, saying a valves a valve. but it's worth doing, i feel now. i'd definitely do it again.
Fender Classic Player 60’s Stratocaster>East Coast T1 Tele>
Epiphone Les Paul SL>Ovation 12 String acoustic>Peavey Strat DIY Relic
Marshall Origin 20H>James’s old purple 2x10
Marshall MG10 Combo
TUBES IS TUBES:
Different tubes can make a huge impact on your amp. Especially the preamp tubes. It's good practice to buy a few different tubes to mix and match to your preference. It does cost a bit of money, but hell you'll have a lot of spare tubes.
I've read a lot of tube recommendations all over the internet but nothing can really help you find the right ones except hearing them in your amp with your particular speakers and guitar, it's all one instrument really.
PREAMP SONDS:
I can tell you from personal experience:
JJ 12ax7's - smooth/warm/muddy
Chinese/Russian - bright/mids/harsh
So, if your amp sounds muddy with JJ preamp tubes, try some chinese or russian tubes there and it should help and vice versa. I found that my VL-1002 sounded really muddy with jj's and switching to some sovtek and chinese tubes really cleared it up. On the other hand, my bugera would probably benefit from jj's since it's upper mids are so damn aggressive.
PROTIP:
You can swap preamp tubes all day and not ever fuck anything up, but when switching power tubes, it's good to make sure they are biased as good as they can be. If they are too far out of bias you can fuck shit up, but you can run them a bit low/cold to extend tube life if you feel it doesn't adversely effect the sound. Some amps seem more sensitive to bias changes than others.
I thought I'd try some gold pin EHX tubes once...tried 'em, they sucked in my TR so I put the cheap sovteks back in which I always liked the sound of anyways. I just wanted to experiment
I also tried some NOS 60's 12AX7's a friend of the family gave me, same deal, I prefer the cheap sovteks. In this particular amp at least.
Moral:If it ain't broke don't fix it!
Put a set of JJ 12AX7's and 6L6's into my Bugera and it turned it into a much better sounding amp. The cleans have a little more richness and the crunch channel really came to life. Amazed at what a difference it made over the stock Valves.
I agree with Sloan about the differences between JJ and cheap chinese tubes. But I would say that the chinese tubes are TOO harsh. When I took my amp building class, they gave us chinese 12ax7's to keep the cost down, they sounded ok at a low volume but they broke up way too harsh way too early. That's what they're known for, if you want tons of gain with not a lot of headroom chinese tubes are good. But I wanted a useable clean and a useable breakup. I switched them for JJ's, one 12au7 and one 12ax7, It smoothed it out just enough, the 12au7 helped with the muddiness that JJ's are known for and the combo left me with a really nice clean sound, that broke up just enough, and sounded real nice and fendery at low volumes. And when you cranked the volume it gets really gritty. I really love the combo. Luckily, the shop that I took the class at was nice enough to let us try out all the different tube options with the tubes that they had in the shop! maybe try and find a nice local ma and pa shop and they might be willing to let you try this out. Another option that techs have suggested to me is to use Tung-Sol, or a nicer, usually more expensive 12ax7 in the first valve position since it will be driven the hardest, and then use JJ's in the rest of the positions. That also keeps the muddiness of JJ tubes down in my experience. That's what I did in my Ampeg SVT, Tung sol's in the first 3 positions, and then JJ's in the other 6.
I just took the Tung-sols out of the Pre on the Fat channel on my DT, ...one went mircophonic.... I replaced them with JJ's and they sound more classic
The tung-sols are more modern sounding, higher gain, more harmonics, thicker low end and less mid definition..and much darker sounding... Great tubes but I prefer the JJ's in this pre amp...the Tung-sols would prolly be best in a bright amp imo.....
I am sure it is to do with structural differences the Tung-sols are obviously diff by looking at them and are a tad longer
if you have an amp that you want the drive thickened up on I bet the Tung-sols would do the trick
lorez wrote: I'm a fuzz lover so my clean is another man's crunch
Yeah I have Tung Sol 12AX7s. I would agree they are a tad on the dark side, but definitely not muddy sounding. Very nice and rich.
I'm also using some Tung Sol 5881 reissues because of space limitations. Again, quite dark, big mid range, break up earlier but a very sweet and rich sound nonetheless.
I'd like to experiment with the short bottle 6L6 GC's for some more headroom though. All in all it's a nice way of beefing up a little 30W combo.
I used some NOS Mullard pre amps in the other Sound City combo i had. They were superior to the chinese valves that were in it, more rounded and greater tonal range to my ears.
