Valve recomendations

sherpa_man

Looking at re valving my Friedman modded Marshall,

Maybe JJ? Tung sol? mixed?

What do you guys think?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sherpaman/39915353741/

SunDevil

The Svet Winged C EL34s are nice but getting rare.

I personally like the Sovtek LPS as a driver over the JJ

uncledick

I find JJs a bit tight and woody for preamps. Fine if you push it hard but I prefer EH for a bit more sparkle.  NOS Mullard even better if you want a lush sound with plenty of nice harmonics.  Can't comment on EL34s though - not sure how much difference it makes in the output stage.

Jock68

Buy what you can afford in Power Valves, there is not a big difference and I do not think that the top of the range Valves are worth 4 times the price. I put Winged in my JVM and it sounds good but the JJs that were in it before sounded OK.

webrthomson

Hotrox have winged C EL34's:

http://www.hotroxuk.com/svetlana-el34-winged-c-valve.html

I've also heard good things about the reissue Mullard CV4004 12AX7 / ECC83 - next on my list try:

http://www.tubeampdoctor.com/en/shop_Other_brands_OEM_Tubes_Preamp_doubletriodes/Mullard_CV4004_12AX7_Russia_4894

jpfamps

My experience with the last few years of =C= production was the the EL34s weren't that durable, although sounded very good.

Current production Shuguang EL34s are actually very good now a flaw in the internal wiring has been corrected. 

I've had mixed results with JJs. Generally they have been good, but a few years ago I started seeing an increase in failure rate, so switched over to the improved Chinese EL34s.

Maynehead

What is it about your tone that you don't like or want to change? What have you currently got in V1 and V2? (They look like Tung Sols to me) The other 2 look like Chinese 12ax7s.

sherpa_man

It’s just a old amp and needs to have a re valves 

Maynehead

In that case the default configuration that you can't go too wrong with is:

v1: Tung Sol
v2: JJ/Chinese
v3: JJ/Chinese
v4: Sovtek LPS

Power valves: JJ EL34s