Whats the differences in tone/gain between differnt tubes

[Outlaws]

You have 3 choices:

Sovtek

Svetlana

Chinese


Every (new) tube is one of these three rebranded...... dont kid yourself. The rest is marketing hype. Your first piece of wisdom is to avoid the chinese tubes.....

Go up a couple posts.

 

[Micter]

I pretty much stick to NOS preamp tubes for the most part. EHX 12ax7's are really good for a cheap preamp tube. Tung Sol are getting good reviews. 9th generation shuguang (chinese) are good but I really like Brimar 12AX7's in V1 better than anything. $35 a piece for a Brimar is purdy steep.

JJ's are my least favorite. Very dark and a bit lifeless to my taste.

Power tubes always go NOS because reliability issues apply to most new tubes on the market. Periodically you'll get a good set of tubes but more often than not one in the bunch will be bad.