Metropoulos Forum

This question is for established amp builders/companys:

What current mfg 12ax7's and EL34's do your amps ship with and why?

Thanks Jimmy

I guess no amp company's look at this forum.

Ever, at all.........for any reason whatsoever or something.

Its just unbeleiveable, wow, uhm gez, man.

I will now go to my grave not knowing the answer to this question.

This might even upset the Space Time Continuum.

Jimmy

Something tells me you're not going to get an answer. Not enough traffic here, and you're asking quite a lot.
I can guarantee that the first considerations for big production lines will always be cost and reliability.

I can say that most of David Bray's amps/mods come back with EH El-34's and JJ 12ax7 (I think).

Mark Abrahamian (RIP) used JJ E34L's and Tung Sol reissue 12ax7 (as well as certain hi gain Chinese 12ax7's)

The Metro/Friedman amps (12xxx) come with EH 6ca7's.

WOW!! Answers!!!

Thanks fella's thats kinda what I was wondering.

Jimmy

sinasl1 used Chinese 12ax7's in his suhr68 clip

EH's and JJ's are not very expensive

Price is definately a factor. It is cool that *certain* current production tubes sound GREAT in *certain* amp specs though.

I build and sell a lot of amps as kind of a side thing, so take that with a grain of salt. And most are not Marshall oriented - the horror! This all being said as a caveat: for me personally, price of the tubes is not an issue. What very definitely IS an issue is function. There are some brands of new preamp tubes for example that sound fantastic, BUT, it is just too hard to find those that don't go microphonic in combos for example after around an hour of heavy drive. Same with power tubes - lots of new tubes that sound great, but many tend to go rattly as all hell after a short time or just can't take the kind of bias and current that I like to throw at them. So inevitably, I may be forced to ship an amp with preamp tubes for example - like sovteks or JJ - that are not my first pick for tone, but on the other hand, will not start rattling and making all kinds of funky noises after the customer plays the amp for a day thus creating a gigantic headache for me. Many folks nowadays are aware of the value of tube rolling, and I figure the customer is going to sort through various tubes to find what he likes anyway. So, I'll go with something that is perhaps merely adequate tonewise but will hold up and stay quiet to ensure that the first impression is not "what the hell is all that racket?" My two cents.