Honestly I spent years spending hundreds of dollars on tubes, and I don't really notice much in the way of any difference across all the tube amps I've owned. Probably notice the most difference in longevity, I found JJs were the least reliable, but some amps like different tubes, probably has to do with tolerances for voltages in some amps or something.
Tone wise I don't think you can go wrong with any of the big name brands.
Honestly I spent years spending hundreds of dollars on tubes, and I don't really notice much in the way of any difference across all the tube amps I've owned.
I'm a fan of the TungSol in V1, and Penta/Shugang in V2/V3. Not sure how much difference it would make in V4 in that amp, but the cathode follower spots are very important in the SLO/Recto/5150 stack.
The JJs are made by another company and re-labeled I think, so watch for that. I have heard the Russian made tubes are better quality and last longer FWIW
Mesa for the longest time would tell you not to use Russian tubes in the cathode follower spots since they didn't handle the strain, but that seems to have changed recently.
I put a set of Sovteks in the power slots, but the only noticeable difference is I feel better that the tubes don’t say “made in China”. Not that I expected anything more than that. :lol:
I've noticed differences in construction (long plate vs normal) and in relative "gain" (the high gain set from JJ vs normal) and in tube variations (JJ EL34II's are the same as TungSol EL34B's but very different from a normal EL34) than I have in brand, which seems to only come up in conversations in terms of reliability (ie, Sovteks have reliability issues, JJ's and TungSol's are pretty solid).
I went through a lot of tweaking when I got my EVH EL34 head. Some of you claim that there is not much of a tonal difference between tubes. Maybe this varies from amp to amp but I was hearing a pretty substantial difference in using different tubes in different positions in my EVH. Tung Sol was an obvious choice in the v1 position. When I got around to the last preamp tube, I couldnt decide. It made the red channel sound really smooth and better but the blue channel suffered a bit. It got to the point, where I wish I could have a tung sol and a high gain JJ and switch between the 2.
For preamp tubes, the only ones I've used that had a distinct, noticable difference were Tung Sol 12AX7s. The lower noise floor is immediately apparent, and they've got slightly more upper mids. I used to put one in V1 of my amps on Noodles' recommendation years ago, and recently have been filling all my preamp tube slots with them. I find a set of tung Sol's really makes a big difference and I love how my amps sound with them.
Yeah the Tung Sol V1 thing is absolutely legit. I couldn't get anything grittier than Foghat tone out of my old Rivera and I did the ol' Tung Sol and a 12AU7 in the PI trick and it was like a completely different amp.
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