12AT7 and 12AX7 tubes for a CD player upgrade

Thinking about upgrading the tubes in my CD player. The manufacturer suggests Tungsol. Any opinions about these tubes? Any other suggestions? Psvane?

 

I use NOS Mullard 12AX7 long plate, some Raytheon 5751 windmill getter and at times RCA 12AX7 long black plate. I tried new manufactured tubes, but they do not compare sonically with NOS. Although I pay a lot, the tubes last 25K to perhaps 50K hours. the NOS tubes may out live me.

 

BTW- any RCA 12AT7 sounds good.

 

Most current production tubes aren't too expensive. I think that you should buy several different new-production tubes to see what your ears think. Yes, the new production Tungsol tubes can sound heavenly is some gear, but these can also be far too bright sounding in other gear.

Tube rolling is a wonderful thing. You can totally make or break the sound of a piece of tube gear with the right or the wrong tubes. So I'd recommended trying the cheap ones first. The expensive "NOS" tubes which so many people recommend on this site are often times very well used tubes with tens of thousands of hours on them already. And a given tube which sounds wonderful in one piece may sound too bright, or muddy as all heck in another. If you seriously want to try NOS tubes, then buy from an ultra reputable dealer like Kevin Deal who will never call a well-used tube a "NOS" tube.

But always remember, the results of any given tube inside of any given piece of equipment can very substantially. There is no one size fits all "best sounding" tube for all applications. Period.

 

For a new production tube I like the 12ax7 Genalex Gold Lion tubes.

 

I am not suggesting that these are the right tubes to improve the sound on your system. I actually have no idea. I looked over the profile gear, and I have no experience with tube based CD players. But I do have some experience with this tubes. Both tube amps that I've purchased use these tubes in pre-amp section. I've owned tube amps for about a 20 years, but I don't consider myself an expert. But I'll offer what I do know. The most impact I've seen on the pre-amp section of either of my integrated amps has been the RCA Clear Top 12au7 tube. Power tubes have given the most impact with EL84 tubes. The clear tops give the high end some snap without sacrificing any warmth. I would not suggest getting NOS. These tend to be pretty expensive, but, used high quality tubes can be had for about $10. For these tubes you can buy a backup set of tubes for less than than NOS. But IMO whether or not these work out in your system, they are worth having. Even if you they don't suit your immediate needs, they might pair better well with a rolling the 12ax7 tubes. Just a good set of tubes to have around that really don't cost all that much.

 

Used tubes- beware there is a lot of used up junk out there and especially so with the better sounding vintage tubes. For example, ebay has RCA black plate 12AX7 with about 1 out of 15 tubes meeting good emissions. If you know what different test numbers mean, used can save money.

 

I don't own tube HiFi gear but do own guitar amps so have a nice collection of NOS and ANOS vintage preamp and amp tubes I have been collecting over the past 20+ years.



Real NOS 12AX7 preamp tubes can indeed be expensive to the tune of more than $100 for real British made Mullard's, Dutch made Amperex Bugle Boys, French made Mazda chrome plates and German made Telefunken's. Even US made RCA's, GE, Sylvania's, Raytheon's, and Tug-Sol's are near $100 for real NOS quality specimens.

While not inexpensive the good news is 12AT7's vintage NOS tubes can be had for less than $40 US from trusted sellers like Brent Jessie, Upscale Audio and HiTest Guitar. They are 2x the price of new production from Russia but will last longer, probably sound better. At least I have experienced this in my Guitar amps.

NOS/NIB Preamp Tubes - Hi Test Guitars

Preamp Tubes

12AT7 Tubes in Stock

 

I just looked at your profile, and I see that the CDP in question is a Doge 6. I also use this player, and I know that I rolled a lot of tubes (new and NOS) in and out of it before I settled on a combination that worked for me. I cannot recall what that combo is, and I'm currently at the office. I will try to remember to open it up and note the tubes when I get home. Will report.

 

Thanks. Much appreciated.

 

No problem. The four 12AX7s are EI, labeled for Audio Research. Pre-wars, I assume. The two 12AT7s are Brimar CV4024s from...I don't know when. But, anyhow, that was the combo that convinced me to button up that machine several years back, and I've been without complaints since.

 

Prewar EI's are nice sounding 12AX7's, at least in a guitar amp, so imagine they would be good HIFI tubes. Brimar's are also highly thought of as well and up there with real vintage Mullard's IMO and usually less expensive.

Compared to NOS 12AX7's the NOS 12AT7's are a bargain and not that much more than new production Russian versions

 

EI 12AX7s sound great in line-level applications whether pre or post war. But the quality control of the latter tubes took a significant dive, and so the pre-war tubes are probably less microphonic.

 

SWEET!

I am listening to this little dual mono amp with 6V6GT tubes running as single ended pentode's, at 3.9-WPC.



You have a lot of tube goodness in that center box. Not that the other boxes were slouches either.

And these 6V6GT's that I just put in earlier today are just new manufacturer Tung Sol's, which just replaced a pair of JJ's. Blows the JJ's AWAY!

Of course there is a 6SN7 tube pre-amp in the system.



Of course, it's really about, how the music comes out. Which is through a pair of these...

 

This is something I have also noticed. Maybe I should start with a pair of NOS 12AT7’s combined with new production 12AX7’s and take it from there.

 

Not a bad idea. I also suggest checking out Brent Jesse's site as he offers NOS vintage 12AX7's which are relabels, and with the labels rubbed off much cheaper than clean NOS versions.

He also has lightly used vintage 12AX7 tubes for about what you pay for new production which will out last the new stuff. An inexpensive way, relatively speaking, to tube roll and try out old vintage tubes.

 

That is definitely the way to go. You can get genuine NOS Mullard 12AT7s for around $40, but a genuine NOS Mullard 12AX7 (if you can find one) is probably > $200 today.

One of these days NOS 12AT7s will become extremely scarce and expensive too. But that day is still in the future as I write this.