preamp tubes for Marshall 1987 style amp

[GuitarGuy08]

Definitely shows how we all hear things differently cause I just swapped between Tungsol, Chinese 12ax7, JJ, Bejing 6n4 square foil getter, EH 12ax7 and don't notice a whole lot of difference in a particular amp. Tubes just don't produce an inherent "tone" or eq curve to my ears. They don't have more mids, or more lows, or more highs. They always react with minimal change to eq or tone in various amps to my ears. An eq pedal in the loop has 1000% more tonal effect than any tube. Just my experience. You folks that hear specific frequency differences between tubs have far better hearing than I do.

You may just not have an amp that reacts as much. Trust me, I had a buddy say the EXACT same thing. Then I brought over my Rivera and started rolling tubes with him. He could definitely and easily hear the difference. He then built a very simple single knob amp that is all hand wired and through hole, and the tubes made a huge difference, whether the preamp or the output. Again, this is highly amp dependent, as I have other amps where a slight change is heard as opposed to an easily audible one.

In the Rivera, you can hear a difference even depending on which tube is driving the FX loop, etc.

 

[MetalHeadMike]

You may just not have an amp that reacts as much. Trust me, I had a buddy say the EXACT same thing. Then I brought over my Rivera and started rolling tubes with him. He could definitely and easily hear the difference. He then built a very simple single knob amp that is all hand wired and through hole, and the tubes made a huge difference, whether the preamp or the output. Again, this is highly amp dependent, as I have other amps where a slight change is heard as opposed to an easily audible one.

In the Rivera, you can hear a difference even depending on which tube is driving the FX loop, etc.

I've swapped pre and power tubes in over 65 amps and the Friedman JJ Jr was the only one where I noticed a significant difference. That amp was like night/day between the stock Chinese 12ax7s swapped for various others. The amp went from sounding bright/present/cutting to dull, dark, and muffled. For some reason anything else other than the Chinese 12ax7 sounded like ass in V1. Every other amp I've swapped in may have some amount of change but to the level where I have to go back and forth repeatedly to hear even the slightest change and more times than not, I cant even detect a difference.

 

[GuitarGuy08]

I've swapped pre and power tubes in over 65 amps and the Friedman JJ Jr was the only one where I noticed a significant difference. That amp was like night/day between the stock Chinese 12ax7s swapped for various others. The amp went from sounding bright/present/cutting to dull, dark, and muffled. For some reason anything else other than the Chinese 12ax7 sounded like ass in V1. Every other amp I've swapped in may have some amount of change but to the level where I have to go back and forth repeatedly to hear even the slightest change and more times than not, I cant even detect a difference.

Fair enough! I hear a difference between the RCA Long Blackplates and a short plate pretty easily, no matter the make it is up against. The distinctions can definitely be far more affected by the EQ in the loop. One of the exact reasons I have a 6 knob EQ a buddy is building me for my rig.