Recommend me some tubes!

[calaverasgrandes]

I would concur. I do believe that some brands of tubes from the olden times are superior to present day manufacture in terms of tone. But I also am old enough to recall getting my amp retubed and having brand new "USA made" duds that would glow purple or arc.
OG Tung-Sol and some others are known for longevity, but I wouldn't sink coin into vintage power tubes betting on longevity to defray the price.
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[hogfish]

[markjazzbassist]

JJ are built for the road, i toured with them for 6 years and had to replace preamp tubes once, they are rock solid and able to take a beating. they sound nice tonally as well.

SED winged C are nice tubes as well.
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www.marktobik.com

http://earthtone.bandcamp.com/

[davepinkham]

[EasyGo]

I recently got a stash of tubes from The Tube Store, including a couple different 12AX7s that I compared in the same amp, in this case a Bugera V5 (1 x 12AX7 and 1 x EL84). I tried the Electro Harmonix 12AX7 and the Svetlana 12AX7. I found the Electro Harmonix to have more of a high gain preamp distortion sound (more 'Marshally,' if you will) and the Svetlana to be cleaner, clearer, and larger sounding, which I liked better.

Earlier, I swapped out the five 12AX7 preamp tubes for 12AT7s (NOS JAN Philips) in my Mesa Boogie, and found it to be more usable for clean and in-between sounds.

[Recycled_Brains]

NOS is pretty much a money pit if you ask me. I'll never do it again. Wasted a lot on something that makes only a subjective difference to my ears. No better or worse, just different.

I stick with EH, JJ, SED winged C (for power tubes in my Marshall).

I like to be able to get tubes that are readily available anywhere. I will say that I've gotten some duds, or microphonic tubes, but I'd rather lose $10 on a shitty EH tube than $40 on a shitty GE, or Mullard or whatever.

Tubedepot.com is your friend. It's been my experience that they do a swell job of weeding out the lemons.
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Ryan Slowey
Albany, NY

http://maggotbrainny.bandcamp.com (FREE demo download)
http://www.myspace.com/hangmanslowly

[Neal]

I don't know what kind of Marshall you're using or how you're using it (whether you crank the volume or the gain or both) but I do know it made a huge difference changing the power tubes in the Marshall I used to use. Just as much if not more so than just swapping preamp tubes. I was cranking the master volume pretty high though so a good amount of distortion was coming from the power stage as well as the preamp stage. Groove Tubes sounded really freakin good in that amp but I know their consistency is an issue. I really like JJ's in the amp I have now (JSX). Pre and power tubes are close to 3 years old with many hours on 'em and still sound good to me.
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some stuff I've recorded: http://soundcloud.com/neal-stein

[tubetapexfmr]

[Recycled_Brains]

[slowcentury]

Id have to say JJ and Mullards are my favorite. Great tone and reliability. I have yet to have a JJ or Mullard go microphonic on me. The worst I have come across in my travels are Mesa tubes (avoid at all cost IMO). I worked in a guitar shop for a few years and we had quite a few issues with Mesa tubes going microphonic out of the box or shortly after installing them. If you cant track down some old RCA's or Phillips tubes they are pretty amazing. My 42 year old Traynor still has the original Phillips tubes in it, I tested the power tubes about a year ago and they were still at 80% or so. Great tubes, however the idea of buying NOS kinda freaks me out a bit.

[Sean Sullivan]

I've always been happy with Electro-Harmonix 12AX7s, 6L6EH's
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Still waiting for a Luna reunion