good modern substitute for Sylvania 12ax7?

[lexluthier72]

Hey Folks,
Ive got a homebrew tube amp that I have a couple sylvania 12ax7's installed in. With the rising costs of NOS or good used....what is a good modern 12ax7 that will give me the same great fender chime that the old sylvanias do?
-Erin

[Steve A.]

Hey Folks,
Ive got a homebrew tube amp that I have a couple sylvania 12ax7's installed in. With the rising costs of NOS or good used....what is a good modern 12ax7 that will give me the same great fender chime that the old sylvanias do?
-Erin

I don't know about the fender chime but I've had good luck popping the Mullard copies from GT into various amp projects- namely their 12AX7M and 5751M. I guess that these are coming from China, as are the Mullard-branded tubes (which aren't quite the same). The Tung-Sol branded tubes are pretty nice, too.

I'd suggest that you pick up at least one of each of those tubes and try mixing and matching the preamp tubes in your amps. They seem to be decent tubes and if they don't work well in one amp they might work great in another...

I always considers tubes to be a good investment (that was how I spent the $300 tax rebate check that George W. Bush personally sent me in 2001!)

HTH

Steve Ahola

[lexluthier72]

Steve,
Thanks...I will look into those. Any thoughts on JJs?

[Brad166]

I like the JJ 12ax7 ecc-803s but not the JJ 12ax7 ecc-83s. Very big diffrence between these two. The 803s have a brilient top end and sound nice and open. The 83s has alot less top end and sound very dark but they have more gain. I find the JJ ecc803s and the Tung-sol 12ax7 great new production tubes.