My Take on the RFT ECC83

[blaren]

Well I got them tonight and I was totally stoked to check them out in my '77 JMP Master Volume. They sound pretty good but not as good as the NOS JAN Phillps 12AX7WA's that I already had in the amp. The RFT's had more gain but the bass was not as controlled. The OD was a little grainy with the RFT's and the Phillips sounded smooth.

I have a shitload of 12AX7s glass coming (Mullards, Amperex, Tung Sol, Sylvania, GE, Raytheon, RCA, Matsushita) and look forward to checking all of those out. I got great deals on everything that I bought so even if I hate everything, which I seriously doubt, it will have been worth it to find out what I really like.

Maybe my ears are just used to the Phillips and I need to give the RFTs some more time. I defintely will...

Well FIRSTOFALL...your Janphillips is OS(pull)...not NOS lol.
Anyway,..A while back I was trying all the 12AX7s I had in a 50W marshall. They were all tubes that I had collected over the years. Every time I re-tubed something I guess I kept the old ones. Thanks for your post cause now I guess I know that my Janphillips must have come from my '76 100master (wonder where the other 2 went).
Anyway...I dont have any sexy european ones. Just RCA, westinghouse, Ei and other made in USA and Canada ones and some newer chinese ones and JJs.
I like the janphillips by far over any of the other junk I have. Full of harmonics and nice and warm and dirty. It could maybe use a TAD of tightening-up but nothing major.
I'm interested in hearing how you compare them to "real" tubes like the mullards and stuff. Hopefully you post a follow-up.
Also, if when you get the mother lode, if you want to let ONE sexy 12AX7 go for a reasonable price to a poor beggar who's never had the priveledge to try a REAL one, I'd sure appreciate it .

[killertone]

Well FIRSTOFALL...your Janphillips is OS(pull)...not NOS lol.
Anyway,..A while back I was trying all the 12AX7s I had in a 50W marshall. They were all tubes that I had collected over the years. Every time I re-tubed something I guess I kept the old ones. Thanks for your post cause now I guess I know that my Janphillips must have come from my '76 100master (wonder where the other 2 went).
Anyway...I dont have any sexy european ones. Just RCA, westinghouse, Ei and other made in USA and Canada ones and some newer chinese ones and JJs.
I like the janphillips by far over any of the other junk I have. Full of harmonics and nice and warm and dirty. It could maybe use a TAD of tightening-up but nothing major.
I'm interested in hearing how you compare them to "real" tubes like the mullards and stuff. Hopefully you post a follow-up.
Also, if when you get the mother lode, if you want to let ONE sexy 12AX7 go for a reasonable price to a poor beggar who's never had the priveledge to try a REAL one, I'd sure appreciate it .

My JAN Phillips are NOS...I got them from New Sensor a few years ago before they were out of stock. They are new in original military boxes. I got a ton of them because I knew they wouldn't be around forever...and I was right.

Well, the "motherlode" came in and I now have around 20 Mullards, 6 Sylvanias, 4 RCA's, 4 GE's, 2 Raytheons, 8 RFT's, 2 Amperex BB's, and assorted others to go along with the stash I already had.

For the most part, the Mullards have a medium to high amount of gain (I61 and I63 respectively) but sound the most focused across the spectrum. The Sylvanias are really great and I would reccomend them to all because they are relatively cheap right now and sound very close to the Mullard. Nice gain and very tight bass. They might be my fave. The Raytheon in V1 with a Mullard in V2 and V3 also sounds great. Very tight and controlled now matter how loud the amp gets. The Amperex BB's also sound great in V1, I think better than the Mullard for what I am going for. Haven't tried the RCA's or GE's enough to say much about them but have heard great things about them both. I am still experimenting (and will be for a while!) so I wll post some more results as soon as I try some more combinations.