Re. Tube Rolling.

Babur72

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Nov 25, 2007
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Hi guys,

Just wanted to canvas the views of anybody on this forum who's had experience of swapping the stock tubes/valves of amps. for N.O.S. ones.Particularly those who have used the 12AX7A/ECC83 variants.

I've been considering substituting the stock tubes in my McIntosh C2300 pre-amp. for a matched set of Amperex's,Gold-Lions,Mullards or Telefunkens.In order to help with further reduction of background noise,increasing the resolution of detail & expression of dynamics & also provide a little more air & openness to the presentation.

Any other brands/varieties i should be aware of? Does anyone have experience with any of these valves? And what sonic charateristics would one generally ascribe to each individual variety of tube?

Regards & thanks.

BABUR.
 

gregory

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Sep 9, 2007
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Dont mean to sound funny, but i would have thought with your gear that the valves used would be pretty good in the first place, i understand about a bit of background noise but valves and all, anyway i like the Svelnetna valves, russian i think, finding NOS valves at a good price is going to be hard but good results iv'e heard are golden dragons and sovteks but not so much as spending quite a lot to hear much of a difference plus you then may have to get the amps biased for the new valves unless you can adjust yourself with the McIntosh, heard the amps which are lovely but cant help with the gain adjusment, i like Croft gear but i cant remember what valves they use, as for matched valves a friend of mine says they make no difference, he's been in the trade for years and only does private work but he has worked for Leak and knows his way around nearly every valve amp including Beam Echo, Radford Quad and all, he does not come on these forums or any other for that matter but i will ask him to have a look as i know he rates Mcintosh amps.
 

Babur72

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Nov 25, 2007
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Hi Gregory,

While they are certainly acceptable,i too expected the stock Mac. tubes to sound that bit better.Which why i'm making tentative moves towards substituting the C2300 pre-amp's standard stock 12AX7a's with higher-grade N.O.S. valves.

I'd certainly be interested in what your tradesman friend advises or opines about the relative performance/sonic characteristics of the better brands/manufacturers' valves.

Regards.

BABUR.
 

willgaunt

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Apr 24, 2010
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Do you know what the stock tubes are?

For what it's worth, I've gone through several sets and ended up with some ECC803s from the Tube Amp Doctor. They beat all the new production Russian ones I had, and some Mullards (admittedly not NOS, but still in good shape). In fact they were the only ones where the difference was immediate, with far more detail and openness, rather than taking time to notice slight changes. Guess it depends on the amp though...
 

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