Who makes decent tubes these days?

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MetalHeadMike said:
JJ pre and JJ power tubes in 50+ amps over 15 years and have had 1 maybe two pre amp failures and zero PT failures. EL34, KT77, E34L, 6550, EL34II. All JJs and not one failure. I'm not partial to any tube and not saying I'm a JJ fanboy at all, just that they work for me and they're cheap and available. I'll keep buying them.

I think tube failures are more related to just a bad tube off the line and even more often the abuse people put them through more so than brand. You buy a used amp and a tube(s) fail...how many times did the previous owner yank and insert the tubes. Some people swap incessantly and that can cause damage. Might not see it easily but that's gotta jack up the pins or where they connect to other internal components inside the tube. Shipping can easily damage a tube...they're relatively fragile.

And I don't get the JJ pres are dark/dull comments I constantly read. I can throw in a JJ pre and then swap to a tungsol, Chinese, or TAD 12AX7 pre and hear very little difference at all. And that's in many many different amps.
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Agreed. Haven't tried their 6550's or EL34II's yet, but liked their other stuff and no failures IME. I really like their 6L6GC's also. I also didn't find any of the JJ's I've had dark. In general, I find them to have aggressive upper mid snarl relative to other brands (at least what I have), pretty tight and punchy, but gotta admit compared to almost any vintage tubes I've got sounds brittle, plastic-y and comparatively lacking warmth and the O word organic, but I like the way the JJ's are voiced/flavored
 
braintheory said:
Agreed. Haven't tried their 6550's or EL34II's yet, but liked their other stuff and no failures IME. I really like their 6L6GC's also. I also didn't find any of the JJ's I've had dark. In general, I find them to have aggressive upper mid snarl relative to other brands (at least what I have), pretty tight and punchy, but gotta admit compared to almost any vintage tubes I've got sounds brittle, plastic-y and comparatively lacking warmth and the O word organic, but I like the way the JJ's are voiced/flavored
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Yeah added 6L6GC cause I've played through countless amps with those too.

Honestly I've tried a few NOS pres and NOS power tubes and can't say I like them any better than current production. I've tried Tesla black base E34L, St. Petersburg =C=, some old 6n4 Beijing square getters, more I can't remember, and I can't say they did anything for me. I just use the cheap and available current production. Anything a tube offers in terms of tone, I can pretty much account for and achieve with the amps eq or an MXR 10 band in the loop.
 
MetalHeadMike said:
Yeah added 6L6GC cause I've played through countless amps with those too.

Honestly I've tried a few NOS pres and NOS power tubes and can't say I like them any better than current production. I've tried Tesla black base E34L, St. Petersburg =C=, some old 6n4 Beijing square getters, more I can't remember, and I can't say they did anything for me. I just use the cheap and available current production. Anything a tube offers in terms of tone, I can pretty much account for and achieve with the amps eq or an MXR 10 band in the loop.
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They are definitely subtle most of the time in their effect, but IME not something eq on amp’s or pedal’s can achieve because a lot of it to me is more about the texture of the notes and other little things rather than frequencies. I actually don’t have any =C=‘s or Tesla’s at the moment (had some in the past), but the vintage stuff that’s been worthwhile for me has been Mullard’s, Telefunken, Amperex Bugle Boy’s, Siemen’s, Valvo’s, JAN Philips, GE, RCA, USA Tung-Sol’s. A lot of it just depends on the amp and which tube type by those brands. For some modern amps I sometimes actually prefer modern tubes
 
MetalHeadMike said:
Yeah added 6L6GC cause I've played through countless amps with those too.

Honestly I've tried a few NOS pres and NOS power tubes and can't say I like them any better than current production. I've tried Tesla black base E34L, St. Petersburg =C=, some old 6n4 Beijing square getters, more I can't remember, and I can't say they did anything for me. I just use the cheap and available current production. Anything a tube offers in terms of tone, I can pretty much account for and achieve with the amps eq or an MXR 10 band in the loop.
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We all hear differently…I remember talking Cs up to you and then you were like “meh, no difference “ haha…I don’t find JJ pre dull at all, but to my ears they are noticeably darker than any other pre tube I own or have tried. The difference in tone that I’ve always heard is with a vintage Marshall, 1990 or older….very noticeable with pre/power tube changes to my ear. You mostly roll with modern amps, with the exception being a JMP 2204? If I remember right. When I rolled tubes in newer Marshalls, VHTs, SLO, Naylor or EVH I didn’t hear the same big difference that I did with the vintage amps. But I always have 1 or 2 vintage Marshalls around. They always improve with vintage glass.
I used to order JJs before I tube rolled and they had a 20-30% failure rate; with new tubes no less. But I forget who I used to buy from. This was a few years back as I’ve had a good stash for years now. Friedman stopped using them; too many warranty claims. The 34s I won’t buy from them but am open to other types.
 
Due to their stringent testing and matching, let alone awesome customer service.. EUROTUBES is great and have been using for years with zero issues.
 
Gibsonchild said:
Namely 12AX7's, 6L6's and EL34's. I need to retube a couple amps, but I have no idea who's worth a shit anymore. I bought some JJ's about a year ago, and they failed in just a couple hours. Not sure who else to consider.

Also... these are going into project amps, so I'm just looking for dependable basic bitch stuff. I don't wanna mortgage the house to buy unobtanium NOS shit made from vegan fairy farts and free range unicorn semen.
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What do you need for power tubes, pairs or quads? I have pairs coming out my ears.
 
braintheory said:
Agreed. Haven't tried their 6550's or EL34II's yet, but liked their other stuff and no failures IME. I really like their 6L6GC's also. I also didn't find any of the JJ's I've had dark. In general, I find them to have aggressive upper mid snarl relative to other brands (at least what I have), pretty tight and punchy, but gotta admit compared to almost any vintage tubes I've got sounds brittle, plastic-y and comparatively lacking warmth and the O word organic, but I like the way the JJ's are voiced/flavored
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Me neither. All the JJ slander that goes around is hogwash. I've been using them for better than 15 years and I've had close to zero failures with power tubes. I had 1 KT77 go bad about 6-7 years ago, and that was from Tube Depot.
 
There's only 3 factories producing tubes, right??
JJ pres worked best in the Mark V I had..
 
napalmdeath said:
Me neither. All the JJ slander that goes around is hogwash. I've been using them for better than 15 years and I've had close to zero failures with power tubes. I had 1 KT77 go bad about 6-7 years ago, and that was from Tube Depot.
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They are also the go-to tubes my tech uses these days and he chooses what he feels is most reliable, not necessarily what sounds great. He’s one of the best I know of, but very expensive. He refuses now to use any Sovtek’s and TAD’s have always been taboo there
 
midnightlaundry said:
There's only 3 factories producing tubes, right??
JJ pres worked best in the Mark V I had..
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I think it's down to 2. Not sure if China's back up and running yet. Unless I'm missing something there's only been 3 in past years.
 
There’s very few companies who “make” tubes anymore, but here are my picks…

Gold lion: I use their KT77s and KT88s in my driftwood purple nightmare as well as my Herbert… they are phenomenal, I did multiple clips before them and after them to decide what the best combo was, and they always won to me. KT88s in my driftwood along with EHX 6CA7’s, all KT77’s in my Herbert. I also dropped the bias down to about 40-45 ma’s per set of tubes on the Herbert, sounds exceptional.

TAD: their 7025A high gain tube is a win to me. This is the number one tube I use in V1 in ALL (8) of my high gain heads. This, or the Gold lion 12ax7, period. Absolutely love both of these tubes. TAD seems to make great 6L6s as well, as that is what is in my rev F recto, however these are the exact same tubes as Mesa tubes… so…. Like I said, very few people are making their own tubes, many relabel.



The gold lion stuff isn’t cheap, but it wins overrall in my most of the amps I own, for me personally.
 
LP Freak said:
Either I have really good luck or some of you guys have extremely bad luck. I’ve probably only had 3-4 tubes that went bad in my entire 40 years of playing tube amps.
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Only bad luck involved is having JJ EL34s in some of my amps, going back many years. Won't buy them, ever again. Just 5 months ago, grabbed a 2205, which included new matched JJ EL34s. Get the amp, clean all the pots, jacks, tube sockets. Then a few hours later reinstall the 'new' JJs (receipt from Eurotubes came in the back of the amp) and turn it on...warming up and POOF a bad smell, shut the power off. One of the 'new' JJs was dead and took out a screen grid resistor.
Thanks JJ.
Contacted the seller and he refunded part of the purchase price, but still.....pain in the ass.
Only EL34s though, other JJ pre/power tubes have been fine.
Glad you all have great experiences with them....keep buying them. I'll stay away.
 
Racerxrated said:
Only bad luck involved is having JJ EL34s in some of my amps, going back many years. Won't buy them, ever again. Just 5 months ago, grabbed a 2205, which included new matched JJ EL34s. Get the amp, clean all the pots, jacks, tube sockets. Then a few hours later reinstall the 'new' JJs (receipt from Eurotubes came in the back of the amp) and turn it on...warming up and POOF a bad smell, shut the power off. One of the 'new' JJs was dead and took out a screen grid resistor.
Thanks JJ.
Contacted the seller and he refunded part of the purchase price, but still.....pain in the ass.
Only EL34s though, other JJ pre/power tubes have been fine.
Glad you all have great experiences with them....keep buying them. I'll stay away.
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I wasn’t specifically referring to JJ’s, just tubes in general. Both preamp and poweramp.
 
LP Freak said:
I wasn’t specifically referring to JJ’s, just tubes in general. Both preamp and poweramp.
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No worries....I've just had a few bad power tube issues over the years, and every time it's been with JJ EL34s. I've had no issues with their 6CA7s, 6L6s, KT88s or pre tubes...but 3x buying new I had a bad tube (they replaced it no problem) and other times with used amps..now, I understand that I have no clue how the previous owner ran their amps but the bias was fine, right in range and within a short time one of the 34s would go bad. I started pulling them if they sent the amp with JJ34s. With the exception being 5 months back, with that 2205...and of course, it happens again. Lol
 
So…

I just opened a box of guitar stuff that I haven’t touched in 15 years, and found this:



I think I’m set for tubes, lol
 
And I’m stupid, by the way. I found some of the bad EL84’s that I received earlier this year, and they were not JJ’s like I though, they were Sovteks.

I don’t know why I remembered them being JJ’s, sorry for the confusion!
 
I've used JJ for many years, I always get them thru eurotubes, I'm like 30 miles away from them and Know Eddy and Bob pretty well.. I've never had a faliure. I got a set of EH EL 34's once just to try something different, I hated them. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
 
MetalHeadMike said:
Yeah added 6L6GC cause I've played through countless amps with those too.

Honestly I've tried a few NOS pres and NOS power tubes and can't say I like them any better than current production. I've tried Tesla black base E34L, St. Petersburg =C=, some old 6n4 Beijing square getters, more I can't remember, and I can't say they did anything for me. I just use the cheap and available current production. Anything a tube offers in terms of tone, I can pretty much account for and achieve with the amps eq or an MXR 10 band in the loop.
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Are you using these NOS tubes in ultra modern amps with lots of preamp gain? If you are, then you most likely won’t hear the nuisances between the tubes.
 
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