Opinions of the older Sovtek 5881s

[timrichter9]

Anyone got opinions on the Sovtek 5881s (I think they are labels 5881WXT or something like that)
Tim
Going in a 1964 Twin Reverb with about 460vDC B+

[MWJB]

Some people find them a bit hard & sterile sounding, I have had good results in some BF amps with them. They can take about another 100vdc on them over that 460vdc, very sturdy tubes. They are definitely not a 23W 5881 tube if that is what is worrying you.

Standard fitment in many, many amps, relabelled as GT in new Fenders (except those running the GT6L6GE as stock).

[big_teee]

Some people find them a bit hard & sterile sounding, I have had good results in some BF amps with them. They can take about another 100vdc on them over that 460vdc, very sturdy tubes. They are definitely not a 23W 5881 tube if that is what is worrying you.

Standard fitment in many, many amps, relabelled as GT in new Fenders (except those running the GT6L6GE as stock).

I have a like new pair that came in my Traynor amp in 2008.
I took them out real quick, and I would say anything would be improvement Tonally.
They are very sterile sounding IMO.
They seem to be very rugged, ant the WXT version is a 30 Watt tube.
I went from those to the Sovtek 6L6s, and they sounded very good.
A few months back I installed a set of the TAD tall bottle 6L6s and I really like those.
T

[soundmasterg]

They are very robust tubes and like to be biased hot to sound their best. Once they are biased in the correct range they actually sound just fine. They do really well in Supro Thunderbolts since those bias around 80-90% of max dissipation. Of course the T-bolt is cathode biased...you would want to be more careful in a fixed biased amp...but still biasing on the hot side is recommended for these tubes.

Greg