EL84s and 12AX7s

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I have recently joined the world of tube audio, though I've always used tube guitar amps. In my Jolida JD102B, I find the JJ 12AX7 to be the most sweet and three dimensional, even over Mullards, Telefunkens, and other new 12AX7s I have tried. The closest I have found are the famous black plate Raytheon, and the EI, which sounds very similar to the Raytheon and appears to be a copy of the Raytheon, at least from the appearance of the plate structure, although the EI has a silver, not black plate. The Raytheon and EI are a little thinner and brighter sounding, at least to my ears, and with my speakers. The other new 12AX7s, such as the Sovtek LPS and EH are thinner and brighter still, too much so. I also found the Telefunken I tried to be too bright and the Mullard to be too warm. For guitar I find the JJ a little too mushy and the EI to be more responsive and glassier and sweeter sounding on the top end. In the Jolida I like the EI EL84 the best. It was kind of thin and bright until it got burned in, but then it opened up nicely and was a definite improvement over the stock Sovteks. I recently got some JJ EL84s, but have not made a determination yet, because they haven't fully burned in yet, so are still a bit bright and flat sounding, although they do seem more detailed than the EIs. I haven't tried the EH EL84 (are they just Sovteks under a different name?) and wonder what anyone thinks of them, as well as the Winged C (Svetlana) 12AX7, which I haven't tried yet either. I haven't done any tube rolling of the EL84s in my Peavey Classic 30 guitar amp, so I'm looking forward to trying different tubes over the stock Sovteks there. So, any opinions on the EH EL84, Svetlana 12AX7, and Golden Dragon 12AX7 (are they just Sino tubes under a different name?) would be greatly appreciated. Also, I'm currently using some Groove Tube 12AT7s, which they say are JAN (Philips?) for the driver and phase inverter, which are also an improvement over the stock Sovtek. The Sylvanias I tried I didn't like, so any opinions on 12ATs would be appreciated as well. I also didn't like the 5751 (also Sylvanias, I think) in place of the 12AX7. Best wishes to all, and Happy listening.

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Topic - EL84s and 12AX7s - DMencoff 23:23:48 01/29/04 (2)

Re: EL84s and 12AX7s - Jimmy 09:13:54 01/30/04 (0)

Classic 30 - steven oda 08:40:09 01/30/04 (0)

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