Ok after owning tube heads and solid state for 20+ years....I decided to do a small tube review.
Specifically the preamp tubes (12AX7)...the ones anyone can change without biasing...we'll get into power tubes later.
Also this is about guys who buy a tube head for the tube sound and tube distortion...not the Line 6 and "modeling" guys.

Modeling is for hot chicks on a runway, not guitarist.

We all seen and read reviews on pre-amp tubes where the reviewer is using either a high end stereo tube powered amp or a Vox 30 or some other vintage clean amp.
His review may be spot on for those applications and his NOS tubes...BUT...

That doesn't help us rock/metal guys looking for all out distortion. So how do we decide?
By popularity?
By whomever is are guitar hero at the time is choice?
By "we sell a lot of this brand?"

1st. I play speed/thrash metal (Slayer, Testament, Pantera...you know real metal from the 80's) and use a B-52 AT100 head, a pair of 4-12 cabs, and hot-rodded Jacksons...along with effects of my necessity.

2nd. Modern readily available tubes are made either in China or Russia and they both suck. Two communist countries with a forced labor pool and shit quality control. Brand A one day may be smoking and Brand A the next may be a dud.

3rd. Groove tubes, Ruby, any amplifier name stamped on the tube...is also either Chinese or Russian. The aforementioned companies are basically a file cabinet. They don't make tubes. They may test them for consistency or to meet a certain spec....but that is about all they do.
Pretty much all the Russian tubes come from the same plant under the same roof....just different assembly guys and specs for them.

J&J's are Slovac Republic made, and produce tubes for other branding....again...another com-block manufacturer and same type of controls...

My B52 needed a tune-up so I decided to be the guinea pig.
I bought:
Sovtek LP
Sovtek WA
Chinese B
Tung Sol
Electro-Harmonix
and used some branded by Peavy, Marshall, TNT, and Groove Tubes.

Peavy, Marshall, TNT, Sovtek WA: all sounded similar, excessive hum, lower gain, muddy in the low end, fair distortion, narrow clean channel frequency.

Sovtek LP: Great distortion and clean tones, BUT DO NOT USE THESE IN THE GAIN STAGE OF HIGH GAIN AMPS. When they were first introduced the were supposed to be ideal for that application, with the longer plate design. On paper it seemed it would dissipate the heat better than the standard short plates and be quieter, but they can't handle the higher voltages of the higher gain amps...like B52, Mesa's, Egnators and some others...
Needless to say, in the gain stage they lasted 3 months at 8hrs a week.
For the clean, distortion stage and to power effects/phase inverter....they are fine and work great.

Chinese B: louder and more distortion than the previous group, better clean channel tones (more depth), a little more articulation in the low end, good mid and highs, but still had excessive amp hum.

Electro-Harmonix: great gassy tones especially for clean channel, about as much bottom as the Chinese B but quieter and the amp hum is tamed down some.

Tung-Sol: Out of all tubes I tried out, this one is the best for the distortion and gain stages. More saturation/sustain, heavy bottom end crunch, great highs and mids, easiest to feed back (if that's your thing )noticeably louder than the others with the least amp hum at idle.

My set up: Tung-Sol for distortion, Gain 1 and Gain 2, Electro-Harmonix for clean, a Chinese 12AT7 in the reverb socket (which I don't use), Electro-Harmonix for the effects send driver and a Tung-Sol for the Power Tube Driver.


I can get the heavy tones of the the big metal guys with the pre-amp at 9o'clock and the gain set at about 2 o'clock....where as my other guitarist has to max his pre-amp and gain and still can't touch my tone.

Any questions, send me a PM...I don't hang out in this forum much...I am too busy playing guitar or shooting a firearm

JJ is a real company.

Tung Sol, Sovtek, Mullard, and Electro Harmonix are all the same people. They are most likely different products but they come from the same parent company.

Quite honestly, I have a hard time telling much, if any, difference between different brands of tubes. Sure, I can detect variations in tubes with differences in amplification factors such as the difference between 12AY7, 12AT7, and 12AX7. I suspect most players wouldn't be able to detect the difference between different manufacturers of tubes in a double blind study. My tin ears suspect we are mostly seeing the "Monster Cable Effect" ™ when comparing tubes.

Nice thread....I was just thinking about this stuff.

I own a Blackstar HT20 Head w/ an Avatar 2x12 loaded w/ V30's and I replaced all the pre's w/ JJ tubes and it made a very nice difference. Gain was smoother and everything was more articulate. CLean channel...I don't use it very much but it seemed chimier. I had tried Sovteks and they had more hum than the stock tubes(T.A.D.'s) and actually lowered the gain. Not what I was looking for at all, as like you I play Slayer, Pantera, Cannibal Corpse, Black Dahlia, etc.... I need good gain, with a tight bottem end, nice highs, and pretty good mids. I get a lot of my mids from my Tube Screamer.

I didn't get to try out a lot of other brands but have been very happy with the JJ's I am currently using. Guitar being used is a Jackson RR24M w/ passive P/U w/ active electronics.

I think I will be replacing the T.A.D. EL34 w/ some JJ EL34's real soon as I've heard it makes the bottom end tighten up even more.....for $31.00 a matched set I'll give it a try.

Not always (as for chinese tube exclusive to high gain)...Chinese are typically cheaper (hence the popularity)....My B-52 came with Chinese, but a year or so later they started using Sovtek's.

The Chinese weren't bad at all, but the Tungs were noticeably better.
Will they last as long as Chinese in that application?
Maybe not in all high gain heads but for as cheap as preamp tubes are....
My first first batch of Tung-Sols lasted 5 years before they lost tone and drive.

I haven't tried a J&J for the power tubes...but I did use one for the rectifier.
The new J&J I received for the rectifier was a terrible...way loose and sloppy sounding...could have been a bad one but not worth the risk again.

My review was to compare some common, affordable pre-amp tubes against one another....and in different heads, the results can be strikingly different.

Thanks for the review.