13. March, 2012

12AX7 comparison

I decided to buy a selection of 12AX7 tubes to find out how they differ.

Remember to switch to 480p for better sound quality:

I tested the following tubes:
JJ ECC83 S
Shuguang 12AX7-B
old used chinese 12AX7A
Sovtek B
Sovtek LPS
Mullard Reissue
Svetlana Reissue
Tung-Sol Reissue

I tested the tubes by placing it in the V1 position, which is where 75% of the tone is made. the other 3 tubes (the last 25%) are Shugang 12AX7-B.

Settings on the rock master is ultra channel, gain pulled, max gain, EQ 3, -3, 3. The cabinet is close miced using an E906.

To get the same performance on all tracks I prerecorded a clip of dry guitar, and fed that to the rock master using a reamp box.

In my opinion, the differences between the tubes are negliable. It was however possible to reveal some difference by comparing two out of phase samples.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.