Tung-Sol 12AX7

I have a Bugera V22 Head (I know, Uli Behringer's The Devil - whatever). I've had it for about 3 months. I've been playing for 15 years or so. This is my first "all-tube" amplifier. It sounded better than anything else I've had so far, but I believed with a new set of tubes it could sound better still. I did a little reading and put together a custom set to suit my needs - home studio & practice space (no playing out with this). This model is one of the many out there that start off with the basic Vox AC15 / Fender Blues Junior recipe of 12AX7s & EL84s. The stock tubes in V1 & V2 were OK, but nothing special. Chinese Shuguang 12AX7s re-branded as Bugera 12AX7As. The V22 is a 2-channel amp and the lead/overdrive channel was a little thin and a bit shrill as well. For me, the whole point behind having a 2-channel amp is to get both a great fat clean tone and a huge overdrive sound without needing to use any pedals (I'm not implying that I'm giving up my stompbox habit, just that my goal here is to have a great overdrive sound from just the head as an option). The results: Very low-noise. Slightly less gain over all. The clean channel sounds richer/fuller. The clean channel doesn't break up as early as with the stock tubes (which is what the lead channel is for anyway). Running the preamp section at full tilt, I get the overdrive tone that I was looking for - solid low-end, rich mid-range, and the highs slightly rounded off. Warm and dark, but not muddy. These tubes sound awesome.

I was having unacceptable noise coming from my Presonus Blue Tube 2-channel preamp, even though I had hardly used it in the past 7-8 years (it was in storage most of that time). After some research I noticed there was a chance the problem could be fixed by replacing the single tube in the unit with a new 12AX7 preamp vacuum tube. I wasn't sure if this would solve the problem but it was worth the shot. It was very easy to install (6 small screws on top of the unit removed a metal plate to access the electronics. I replaced the old tube with this Tung-Sol and to my delight it worked to quiet the preamp noise. The tube was delivered in 2 days, came well packaged, and worked perfectly. It has a warm sonic character. According to a note inside the package this order was fulfilled by a small company called Tonal Tubes. They consider themselves a "mom and pop" type family business. I have only good things to say about them and would readily do business with them again. Thank you Tonal Tubes!

What can I say.... as a Tube Amp lover, I have tried MANY tubes. I love several types and "brands" for various amps and situations / musical styles.Something I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that anytime my amps are loaded with TUNG SOL Tubes, they come even more "to life" than they were with other good brands.It's seriously situational, but here is an example.I have these preamp tubes loaded in a Plexi clone, sounds amazing, but was not what I was looking for in that amp, so I swapped out 2 of the 3 preamp tubes for SOVTEK to see if that was better, and it was, BUT the TUNG SOL was in 1st position, influencing the tone the most.. An amazing combo!BUT, most recently, I bought a JOYO BantAmp METEOR to test out sounds on, as I was curious, They run on a TUBE preamp, and a solid state power amp. Stock tubes were great, but I knew it could be "better".I had several Electro Harmonix laying around, 12AX7H.. Tried them, sounded even better than stock, which again was NOT bad at all, but this was better. I thought I had a spare TUNG SOL somewhere, but I didn't, so I ordered this one.. Once I swapped out the Electro Harmonix one (which again, was amazing already!) The sound seemed to transform into exactly what I was looking for.Were the differences HUGE and way different? No... not at all, but what it DID have, was a warmer, but punchier sound to it. I thought maybe it was just me wanting the TUNG SOL to be better, but I swapped back and forth, and even recorded them, and the results were the same, the TUNG SOL won hands down for my personal tastes.I will ALWAYS run TUNG SOL tubes as my primaries, they are just excellent all the way around for what I am trying to achieve. That PLEXI also has TUNG SOL power amp tubes, and let me tell ya, she's a beast!Don't hesitate, buy these and enjoy your tone. The seller is also top notch!

Product works great. Amp is clearer and notes are much more separated. I replaced electro harmonix and it sounded much better. So why not 5 stars? Well, it was shipped in a very thing padded Amazon envelop and the tube was completely exposed to shock, etc. I ordered other power tubes from another company and they came packaged nicely where there was no way to get damaged en route. 5 stars if they fix the pathetic shipping.