ART Digital MPA...Golden?

MPA Gold comment-trials and tribulations

Whether you know this or not, ART is now part of/owned by Yorkville Sound.

I ordered the standard ART MPA Gold From Musicians Friend at $399 when it first became available and a few month later both the channel meters wouldnt work due to the warping channel meter panels. I sent an e-mail to ART and long story short, was asked to send it to their Yorkville Sound Niagra Falls shop (not ART in Rochester New York) for repair. When I received the thing back, it was clearly trashed by their repair folks. Cracked plastic meter covers, the new meter panels were placed on crookedly, scratched front panel like they had used a pair of pliers to take it apart, pitting in the front panel plate and so on.
Well, this prompted an emphatic, what in the Hel_ are your guys doing up there in Niagra Falls? Letter.
My MPA Gold was quickly replaced with the new one I currently have.
I run it into my Pro VLA and love it.
So once this all came out in the wash, I am quite happy.
I'd like to know more about changing out the tubes in both the MPA and VLA!!!!
Bob G/HSG
 
I'm looking around for a pair of 12AX7 tubes for the Digital MPA. It has been suggested that the stock ART tubes are "Chinese suppositories" and so I must banish them from my equipment. The JJ ECC803S @ http://www.vacuumtube.com/tubes.htm comes highly recommended on a user review over at harmony-central.

The vacuumtube.com description - "JJ 12AX7S is considered to be one of the best for guitar and hifi applications. They simply sound better in most guitar amps than the other new 12AX7s. Most players prefer them for their warm sparkly sound."

Honestly it would probably be difficult for me to distinguish between the output of a vacuum tube and a lightbulb (other than the notable volume difference) so I'm trusting the folks that have more experience on this issue. Earlier Mshilarious recommended GE tubes, how would the JJ compare to those?
 
There's been an outburst of tube replacement going on around here and I endorse this activity. There's also a lot of guys who say they can't hear the difference.
That said, I use only JJ's as preamp tubes in all my stage rigs. I use only NOS GE, RCA, or (here it COMES) Siemens in my mics. I don't have any tube pre amps, all discrete class A but I would assume the same results as my Super, twin or blues jr. which is excellent, very clean and robust with a break up at the push point
 
I have four matched NOS GE 12AT7s waiting for me when I get home. You might want to wait until I test those against my selection of vintage 12AX7s.

I don't know how various new tubes sound, because I am allergic to paying much more than $5 for a tube.
 
I almost bought the Digital MPA myself, loved the specs and the digital out.

But on my budget I opted for a kit to build a tube pre myself, no digital out, but the rest of the specs are the same, and it mods quickly if I want it to.
 
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