1
2
Shuguang (Chinese)
Third to be tested is the Chinese 12AX7B. These tubes
have undergone many design changes over the last few
years and the Chinese plant has invested heavily in
new tooling and materials. The 12AX7B is one of the
latest generation tubes to come from the chinese Shuguang
factory and we feel is one of the best produced by them.
Despite Chinese tubes having a bad reputation over the
years we feel this latest tube is excellent. We found
that the tube was very well balanced right across the
frequency spectrum with little colouration noted in
any part of the frequency curve.
These tubes worked the best in our Leak 20/20 Hi Fi
amplifier where a very articulate and well balanced
sound stage was noted. In our guitar amp we were surprised
yet again. Clean the tube sounded neutral and the true
tone of our Strat and Gibson 355 was faithful. Driven
into crunch these valves sounded really bluesy with
a massive bottom end. At high gain the tube was not
as quiet as the other two tubes tested but this did
not cause problems and was only apparent at extremely
high gain settings. The overdrive was smooth and detailed
producing pleasing harmonics and overtones. We liked
these tubes and was surprised at how well they actually
performed. particularly clean in Hi Fi and Crunchy blues.
Tungsol (Russian)
The Tung-Sol 12AX7 is a high end Russian Pre-amp tube
manufactured under the same roof as the Electro Harmonix
tubes. We found these tubes to have a very fat bass
and smoother top than their EH cousins. Also the gain
is much less than the Electro Harmonix tubes. These
are great for warming up a harsh amp.
JJ ECC803S (Europe)
This is a long plate version of the standard JJ ECC83S.
The tube is very similar to its cousin the ECC83S except
with slightly less gain and maybe a little more humph
at the bottom end of the spectrum. We found the tube
is great but not suited in high gain positions in amplifiers
due to the long plates attracting more vibration and
noise. These tubes work really well clean or in Hi Fi
applications.
Well That's it from all at Voc Rock for now. We hope
you found this guide to preamp tubes helpful.
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