walterharp
189 posts
Jan 18, 2010
1:38 PM
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I was fortunate to get a box of 12a?7 tubes to try out in the preamp section of my amp, and have spent lots of time trying different ones out. While some NOS tubes don't help much, some do. One RCA blackplate I put in sounded great. Went to the web... $40 for one of those. But another 12at7 was a cheap jj one, and it sounded better than some of the other NOS ones.
Power tubes matter some, but probably not as much as the preamp tubes, they generally don't get overdriven. You can change more in power tube tone by altering bias, and harp players usually like a bit saggier sound with slightly lower bias voltages.
I have also drifted back toward higher gain preamp tubes, they seem to give the amps more spank, but they are trickier to dial in because there is not so much sweep on the volume controls
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