TurboDog Posted March 14, 2002 Share Posted March 14, 2002 It seems like a lot of people are going JJs and I've heard good reviews. So why are they about 1/2 as much as GrooveTubes? My local guitar shop wants $50 for a duet of GTs. I can get 4 JJ's online for about $55. I can retube my whole amp for about $75. Which preamp tube will boost gain over stock tubes (12ax7 family)? Anybody have suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strat0124 Posted March 14, 2002 Share Posted March 14, 2002 Originally posted by TurboDog: It seems like a lot of people are going JJs and I've heard good reviews. So why are they about 1/2 as much as GrooveTubes? My local guitar shop wants $50 for a duet of GTs. I can get 4 JJ's online for about $55. I can retube my whole amp for about $75. Which preamp tube will boost gain over stock tubes (12ax7 family)? Anybody have suggestions?Search the posts man, and you'll see another similar post asking the same thing. Also GT's and JJ's are sometimes the same exact tube..... I do know that a 12AU and a 12AT will give ya a cleaner tone, but I don't see a 12AX7 having much diff with gain, its the gain stage of the particular design. Power tubes will, for sure. Tube hardness will determine that very thing. Myles can answer these alot more intelligently. Down like a dollar comin up against a yen, doin pretty good for the shape I'm in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboDog Posted March 14, 2002 Author Share Posted March 14, 2002 I'm probably going with a set of El34L's from JJ. I know GrooveTubes come from everywhere. The "4" may be from China and the "6" may be from Yugoslavia. They take tubes, match them, rate them, and charge you 2X as much as the same tube somewhere else. Oh well. I'll probably have the amp biased to get tube breakup a bit earlier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gabriel E. Posted March 14, 2002 Share Posted March 14, 2002 The 12ax7 has more gain than any other tube in the 12*** family. So anything else would reduce gain. That being said, some 12ax7s have more gain than others. Check out Triode Electronics or the Tubestore for detailed info. Both are available online. "You never can vouch for your own consciousness." - Norman Mailer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strat0124 Posted March 14, 2002 Share Posted March 14, 2002 Originally posted by Gabriel E.: The 12ax7 has more gain than any other tube in the 12*** family. Hey Gabe..you gotta stop drinking that Dixie Beer....look a couple posts up..... Gene Down like a dollar comin up against a yen, doin pretty good for the shape I'm in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myles_rose Posted March 16, 2002 Share Posted March 16, 2002 Originally posted by TurboDog: It seems like a lot of people are going JJs and I've heard good reviews. So why are they about 1/2 as much as GrooveTubes? My local guitar shop wants $50 for a duet of GTs. I can get 4 JJ's online for about $55. I can retube my whole amp for about $75. Which preamp tube will boost gain over stock tubes (12ax7 family)? Anybody have suggestions?Today's preamp tubes in the 12AX7 family, even from the same maker, are all over the place when it comes to gain. At a given reference setting, they range from 0.7mA to 1.6mA. The industry standard is 1.2mA with a transconductance of 1600. When you realize that this tube as an MU (or gain) of 100, the difference between 1.0 and 1.4 is pretty large. So ... when you want the most gain, you need to measure these tubes and then keep the ones with the highest gain. In reference to the cost of Groove Tubes, there are a few factors. They match differently for one thing. If you want more of the details, take a peek at my website where this is covered. Regards, Myles S. Rose www.guitaramplifierblueprinting.com www.la-economy.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/mylesr www.twitter.com/myles111us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myles_rose Posted March 16, 2002 Share Posted March 16, 2002 Originally posted by strat0124: Originally posted by TurboDog: It seems like a lot of people are going JJs and I've heard good reviews. So why are they about 1/2 as much as GrooveTubes? My local guitar shop wants $50 for a duet of GTs. I can get 4 JJ's online for about $55. I can retube my whole amp for about $75. Which preamp tube will boost gain over stock tubes (12ax7 family)? Anybody have suggestions?Search the posts man, and you'll see another similar post asking the same thing. Also GT's and JJ's are sometimes the same exact tube..... I do know that a 12AU and a 12AT will give ya a cleaner tone, but I don't see a 12AX7 having much diff with gain, its the gain stage of the particular design. Power tubes will, for sure. Tube hardness will determine that very thing. Myles can answer these alot more intelligently.Strat0124 and others .... Groove Tubes and JJ's are not the same tube. The JJ EL-34L is slightly different than the GT EL-34LS. The LS has an extruded heat sink on the plate. Groove Tubes sells tubes from most of the same tube companies as the other folks, but because they are a large organization compared to some others, they spend a lot of time in the factories and make specific changes for the tubes produced for them. This is just like in the "old days" when Fender went to Sylvania and made an STR (special tube request), and the STR 387 was born for Fender amps. Groove Tubes will tell you where the tubes came from, they never keep that a secret. Some Examples are: 6L6R - Sovtek 6L6R2 - Svetlana 6L6C - China etc. The difference in the retail cost is due to their rebasing some tubes with better quality bases and pins, their more protective packaging, and the way they perform their matching. I go into this matching aspect in some detail on my website. Some people might claim closer matching, but I prove to people a few times each week, that tubes matched in a static condition for current draw, that look matched, when put on vacuum tube curve tracer, can be far from matched in actual operation. I then show them that a GT product out by what looks like a few milliamps in a static state, when run in real life, has the curves lie on each other and appear as a single tube. Hope this helped .... Regards, Myles S. Rose www.guitaramplifierblueprinting.com www.la-economy.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/mylesr www.twitter.com/myles111us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myles_rose Posted March 16, 2002 Share Posted March 16, 2002 Originally posted by TurboDog: I'm probably going with a set of El34L's from JJ. I know GrooveTubes come from everywhere. The "4" may be from China and the "6" may be from Yugoslavia. They take tubes, match them, rate them, and charge you 2X as much as the same tube somewhere else. Oh well. I'll probably have the amp biased to get tube breakup a bit earlier.TurboDog ... Nope in a word .... the numbers have nothing to do with where the tube comes from. As I wrote before, there are other designations that show where the tube came from. As far as biasing the amp to get a certain characteristic, this works, but only to a certain degree. Its sort of like if you set the idle on your car to 3000 rpm instead of 800 rpm, the car won't have a different top speed, but it will be very interesting off the line, especially with an automatic when you slam it into drive or let off the brake. That is one of the reasons GT has those numbers ... they are the specific distortion characteristics of the tube. Take a look at their website, I think they might explain it there. If you talk to some of the tube folks out there, a lot of them know me personally. I think they feel I am not biased (no pun intended), although one of two of them may dislike when I try to bring the reality of truth into the picture. I use more tubes than most folks, and procure these tubes at posted prices. I also get the tubes from a number of different folks that get the tubes for what appears to be normal use, and not testing. This is how we try to make it a bit more sure that we are not getting hand picked items. The folks I list on my website are the folks that month after month, sell products as advertised and that you can rely on. You may have seen other vendors on my website in the past that are not there now. This is because they may have failed to live up to our testing standards, or that they give out information that may be misleading. I sometimes feel I am the "Ralph Nader" of the vacuum tube world, and one of my primary functions in life is to dispell mis-information. If somebody wants to take offense to this, I have no problem with that ... I would be more than happy to sit down with anybody personally, fire up some test equipment, and let you see for yourself the reality of what is being offered out there. This is not subjective or personal opionion, it is straight ahead math and engineering. Some of this is posted on my website. If I do NOT mention a vendor on my website, it is NOT any indication that they are not a fine company. I may not be aware of them, as there are many out there. If you feel somebody is out there that I should mention, please email me with that information. In one area of my website, the Groove Tubes area, I do mention a specific vendor as an issue, as that vendor makes statements specifically against Groove Tubes which in my opionion lack technical support. When one company tries to increase their business in a way that does not benefit the consumer, as some sort of value added service, by trying to discredit others, then I take a bit of offense to that practice. Most of the tube vendors know each other, and have positive things to say about one another. Regards, Myles Myles S. Rose www.guitaramplifierblueprinting.com www.la-economy.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/mylesr www.twitter.com/myles111us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboDog Posted March 16, 2002 Author Share Posted March 16, 2002 Thanks for all the info Myles. Again you've been a big help. I think that I read the lower the number, the less power output, hence an earlier break-up. Please correct me if I am wrong. The only tubes I can get locally are GT's, Ruby's, and Sovteks. I assume Ruby does the same as GT. What experience do you have with them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myles_rose Posted March 17, 2002 Share Posted March 17, 2002 Originally posted by TurboDog: Thanks for all the info Myles. Again you've been a big help. I think that I read the lower the number, the less power output, hence an earlier break-up. Please correct me if I am wrong. The only tubes I can get locally are GT's, Ruby's, and Sovteks. I assume Ruby does the same as GT. What experience do you have with them?TurboDog ... You are 100% correct... the lower the number, the quicker the tube will go into distortion, as it will provide a bit less power in comparasion to a higher number tube. There is a chart I have somewhere, that showed the difference between a GT NOS #1 and a #10 as far as watts and db of sound output. It shows that there is a difference, but not as much as one might think sometiems, or more than others think at other times I guess. I'll try to find it at some point, scan it, and put it where folks can see it. Bottom line though ... you are correct-a-mundo ! Myles Myles S. Rose www.guitaramplifierblueprinting.com www.la-economy.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/mylesr www.twitter.com/myles111us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.