Totally Tubular - Techie Tube Talk
Tubes Tubes Tubes For many years I used TungSol 12ax7 tubes for pre-amp and phase inverter tubes. I loved the sound of my amps. Somewhere along the line i started using JJ 12ax7, JJ ECC823 in pre-amp slot V1, and JJ 5751 for the phase inverter slot. The reason for switching to JJ tubes was the reputation as being super tough and very road worthy. I even had myself convinced I liked the tone. After a few years I noticed a few things about the JJ pre-amp tubes that I had been ignoring. First, my guitar sound had a strong midrange tone that overpowered some areas of tonal harmonics and sustain. No matter what I did I could not dial out that tone. There was also a high edge that almost screeched sometimes. I had to be very careful. It got to the point that it irritated me. Next, I noticed that I was replacing the phase inverter tube more often than before, and the 12au7 half of the ECC823 (used by the high gain channel) was crapping out on me at an even fa