Tube boards. Bring ‘em

Dan0h

Dan0h

Well-known member
In excitement to build this Black Eye board, and the assumption that our host will be adding some cool tube projects in the near future, plus being bombarded with the 20% off sale from Fuzz Audio all month long, and my West and Super Champ both have 12ax7s that need backups… with all that as an excuse I justified a little shopping fun and ordered some tasty tubes.
6D98B9BA-E15A-4518-9E49-81B7593F45DF.jpeg
 
Harry Klippton said:
You mean you don't have like 30 in a box in the closet? 😂🥶🤷 You could just buy current production tubes
Click to expand...
I have a few of those too. But I like the old ones better. Because the black eye is all about gain new production makes the most sense. But for my old West and any potential clean pre builds I’ll pay up for the NOS ones.
 
Most valuable box in the house. Doesn't include my stash of NOS EL34s, EL84s, and 6V6GTs. Got a bit trigger happy during Covid and now I have enough nice old tubes for the rest of my life. It's quite a luxury to be able to use NOS long plate Blackburn Mullards in a phase inverter but what a huge difference it makes, especially in a Marshall.

I bought a bunch from one seller I found on eBay who was legit. I sent him a bunch of tubes I had bought elsewhere and he tested them and sent me results. Also recommended a deal on a mislabeled Mullard CV4004 from a seller he disliked. If anyone is looking for reasonable prices dm me and I can send you his info.

I don't know what his prices are like now bc of the shortage of new production but I was getting beautifully labeled Mullard i63s for roughly 45 per tube.
 

Attachments

  • 20220731_203427.jpg
    20220731_203427.jpg
    658.6 KB · Views: 9
Tempting but I'll stick to the , 2-3 companies make them new and not much different, in the US, price-wise only 1-2 dollars more at worst.
 
Harry Klippton said:
I don't think I've ever paid more than $10 a piece for preamp tubes
Click to expand...
That is awesome. Best price I’ve ever found was $20. I found the 6550s did not make any audible difference going to new production but the pre amps tubes specifically the 12ax7 and 12at7 both had a 100% difference in sound when dropping in any new production (at least that I have had the chance to try out). It may be because the circuit on this 70’s West is extremely bare bones, it’s basically a direct copy of the old bassman, and the tubes have everything to do with the sound. Or I might just be crazy. Most likely the crazy part.
 
Harry Klippton said:
I don't think I've ever paid more than $10 a piece for preamp tubes
Click to expand...
Most of these were 2-5 bucks apiece:

12SL712SN7.JPG


12SL7.jpg

But those are 12SL7 and 12SN7. Comparable 6SL7 and 6SN7 run 20-50 bucks (and up) in generic white boxes and I've found microphonics to be a total crapshoot these days. 12AX7 is probably my least favorite common tube for my bass applications, guitar is a whole different story though. ;)
 
The vast majority of my vintage tube stash was free, I helped a retired radio repairman/hoarder clean up his house when he was moving and he said I could keep whatever I wanted. The majority were kept in a shed outside, but it was southern California so most were still okay. Took a couple weeks to test them all, but well worth the time.
 
Harry Klippton said:
My grandma worked at Sylvania from 56-73 welding filaments in tubes so I like to imagine that she made the Sylvania tubes I have
Click to expand...
Lucky!

I definitely agree that NOS power amp tubes don't make much of a difference soundwise. I spent way too much collecting 10 Mullard XF2 EL34s but at least I know that they will last 30-40 years in an amp. I went through a groove tube set in 18 months on a fixed bias amp that was biased around 60%. You are just paying for reliability.

There is a big audio change among 12AX7s. Recent example was before my last band practice I swapped out that three in my Plexi build. I had been running Blackburn Mullards i63-v1, Herleen Ampeg with the large getter with a 1959 code in V2, and a red tip selected F91 Long plate Mullard in V3. I wanted to see if I went all Mullard Blackburn i63s to see how different it sounded. It sounded way more compressed in the lower mids and it didn't sit right in the mix with my band. But again, I totally get people not wanting to spend upwards of $250 on three preamp tubes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top