USA Fender 12ax7

[Manic]

I was was wondering if anyone here has an idea where this tube was made. What ever info anyone has would be cool.
It tests good.
I havent scrutinized it yet, as far as how it sounds.

thnx

[dai h.]

maybe GE. bit fuzzy.

[Manic]

Sorry for the poor pic, a cell phone cam is what I have to work with.
I believe it was original equipment in a SF Champ.
The OT in the Champ is stamped E1A4606-830. I believe that would mean it was built around 1983?
I found the same tube(as far as I can tell) for sale for $20, but it didnt give any specifics about the manufacturer.

[dai h.]

I see. I'm not totally certain, but what I'm noticing is the plate structure, etched font of the "U.S.A." marking, and bottle shape which makes me think "GE". Here's a pic I found in my tube pic files of a grey plate GE(yours looks black) for comparison.

[Manic]

thnx for the info and the pic. Here is another pic. In this one you might be able to see better how the plates are fixed together and that half circle cut out of the side of the plates.
The getter looks very round.
My tube has the same pattern of dots under where it says USA as Yours does.

[dai h.]

yeah I can see the plate better now and I do think that is a GE.

[Manic]

Today I pretty much pinned it down, Your correct Dai, its a GE.
I went to a buddys house and he happened to have several makes of GE 12ax7s. It was clear after looking at a few GE's close up.

....as far as tone I didnt care for it. It had a small "sound stage" and was a lil ice picky on the top end. It did though compare closely to a couple other Ge's my buddy had. Didn't like them much either. The GE's were compared to an...

NOS RCA (which was the nicest we had on hand)
GT12ax7M (got second place, surprised us both)
GE's (third for the above reasons)
and a shock to Me, My Amperex ORANGE GLOBE was just plain nasty.
...FWIW

[dai h.]

I've got a couple and I don't really recall falling in love with them either but I think that one should keep in mind that tubes can work differently in different situations. For example, I've got some Sylvania 12AX7s which I was never impressed by but I took a bunch of 12AX7s over to this guy's house to try them in his vintage Marshall Super Lead, and a Sylvania we tried sounded really good, so... It seems to depend on the situation. To be a bit more specific the Sylvanias always seemed to be high gain but usually microphonic but in the guy's Marshall it didn't seem to be as bothersome. In hindsight, I figured that the response of the stage (2200pF coupling cap and .68uF cathode bypass) helped since the response is not as good in the lows as when the channel setup is 0.022uF coupling cap and 250 or 330uF cathode bypass.

[Manic]

Absolutely, and the same thing can happen with amps, speakers, guitars, strings, pedals, pickups and fuzzy dice. One may sound good with one peice of gear yet not so good with another. Or in the case of the fuzzy dice, not look good in one car but go great in another

By the way the test amp was a sweet heart of a Pro reverb, AA165 circuit.

[Sweetfinger]

Originally Posted by Manic

Absolutely, and the same thing can happen with amps, speakers, guitars, strings, pedals, pickups and fuzzy dice. One may sound good with one peice of gear yet not so good with another. Or in the case of the fuzzy dice, not look good in one car but go great in another

I LOVE the fuzzy dice analogy! I WILL be using that one in the future.