Valves for Ashdown FA 60 DSP Head

[Ian.cameron]

Does anybody know what are the best valves to fit in a Ashdown Fallen Angel DSP All-Tube FA 60 DSP Head?

[oc disorder]

Hi Ian and welcome to the forum.

I have no personal experience with the "fallen angel" but have worked on other Ashdown tube amps.
The tubes supplied with the newer ones in this end of the world seem to be
the chinese ones some of which after shipping can be noisy.
The FA 60 uses 4 x 12AX7 (ECC83 European number) and 2 x EL34.
I find the Svetlana "Winged C " EL34's to be very reliable and the JJEL34's
seem to be very popular.
A lot of the time it's down to personal taste for tubes so its hard to say that brand xyz is far superior to brand zyx !
With modern tube manufacture occasionaly you can get a faulty brand new tube which can be just bad luck and doesn't reflect the quality of the whole
brand.
Having a quick look at Antique Electronic Supply
I notice they have both Winged C and JJ .
There is a pack they put together "TUBE COMPLEMENT FOR MARSHALL JMP (50W) OR JCM800 (50W) T-M50 " which would be ok you would have to buy an extra 12AX7 as the Marshall only uses 3.
You could alternativly buy 2 x T-EL34--WC and their T-12AX7-SET so you could experiment with different tubes in different positions.
This set may be a bit expensive as you would have 6 left over but
10 tubes for a hundred bucks to me seems reasonable.
12AX7 SET, 10 TUBES TOTAL

Try some of the most popular 12AX7's available at a great price and find the ones that you like best. Comes with one of each of the following. We reserve the right to substitue any of these tubes with one of equal value based on availablity.


12AX7-S-JJ
ECC803-S-JJ
12AX7 China
12AX7B China
12AX7-PS-TAD
12AX7-C-GT
12AX7A-C5 Ruby
12AX7-EH
12AX7WA Sovtek
12AX7 Fender

Hope that's some help