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 (use...