Hey man

Right now Im running all NOS or Almost NOS

V1 GE 12ax7
V2 Sylvania 12ax7
V3 philips JAN 12ax7

V4&5 Sylvania 6l6GC ANOS

none are the infamous blackplates, which I have yet to try

Sounds great but there are many good combinations depending on price range

What are you using now?

Todd

It sounds much better with these than it did will all new production JJ's

In my 50w HRM with LNFB switch, a pretty esoteric mixture:  (I'm a tube collector)

V1 Adzam 12ax7s,
V2 Blackburn Microtech e813cc,
PI Philips MIniwatt shortplate,
power tubes RFT el34's,

C-lator Telefunken ribbed plate ecc83.

I guess I'll post my humble set of all regular production tubes.

Preamp tubes are all Tung Sol RI 12AX7
Power Amp= TAD 6L6 WGC STR

They sound great with my HRM 50.

@soundperf...

I'd be willing to bet that lots of the youtube "OTS family" of amp clips are coming from amps that use new production tubes...    Those tones are what prompted me to get my HRM 50!  If it works, is reliable, and you as well as others like the tones, well WTF is wrong with that???  Nothing!  

For my amp I selected each tube specifically for each position, each had to compete against many other choices, each won their little individual "tone contests" for a given position, and none of them are immune to being kicked out of their special spot if I roll something else for that particular position and I end up liking my personal tones better as a result. When the basic tones slightly changed after new amp burn in, I started rolling and swapping out.  The only tube left from the original tube mix a few months ago is the tube in the c=lator.  But that's what happens when you have slowly built up a hoard of more than a hundred vintage tubes to play with...

The only tones I ever chase are the ones I wish for myself about. And that often changes when I play in a mix with other instruments playing out, it's the mix tones which have the highest priority for me.

To each his own, and I've yet to discover a greater possibility of more varieties in tone palettes than within the OTS family of amps, hats off to the big guy and those online amp building fanatics, their "mad scientist" projects, the sharing of info and results, and the equally fanatical commercial amp builders who took things from his wonderful foundations of amp designs and made things better for so many guitarists, rich and not so rich, but all picky about what they want.

Now to really open up the worm can it would be fun to hear why certain tubes were chosen for each position from those posting here.  I'm gonna wait until this thread gets bigger before I toss in my one penny's worth of reasons for my selections.

Peace.

I agree! Mine sounded awesome with JJ's and Sovteks, I just like a lil warmer sound, which is why I swapped out for what I have now. There are probably literally hundreds of OTS amps running new production or non boutique tubes that sound fantastic! What it comes down to is finding what YOU like, if that comes from "cheap" tubes, so be it.

These are my choices lately (nothin but NOS all around :

 For the standard HRM I dig: RCA short grey plate 12ax7a's for V1 & V2, Long Plate Raytheon's for the PI.

 For the Bluesmaster circuit: Amperex (Short Plate) Ecc83's in V1 & V2, Long Plate Raytheon's in the PI

 NON-HRM
(183) GE (JAN) 12AX7wa's in V1 & V2, & V3
(Ojai) RCA (short Plates) 12ax7a's in V1, V2, Telefunkin Halo getter's in the PI

Amperex (short plate's ONLY) in the Dumbleator ( even if you don't want to spend the $ on NOS for your amp, they make a huge difference in this position)

New production:

--C-- 's or Ruby's for the Power amp whether it be an EL34 or 6L6.


NOS preamp tubes can be found at a decent price, I highly recommend them, IHMO they do sound better.

Telefunkin's are very bright and Sound great in the Bluesmaster V1 & V2 also



If you want to get new production preamp tubes here's what I'd get:

 Mullard Ecc83's (New Sensor)
 Sovtek 12ax7wa's are ok too

 Tung-Sol 12ax7's are garbage IMHO (I got 50 of these before and ended up with 10 that sounded & tested strong, when they are good they sound great though, they do have a history of failing too)

,really good to hear all your choices , mine has tung sol 6L6 gc and a mixture of pre amp valves two have no markings at all and the last is a edicron ,what do you guys recon ? change em all ?,only just got the amp and it's my first ceriatone ,so i'll be asking lots of questions ,am willing to spend on decent valves ,just which ones? ,i like the tone smooth ,not too bright ,all ideas welcome..ps my tung sols arn't like normal size 6l6 [say jj's ] they seem to be bigger like big bottle kt66's if you get me,,says tung sol made in russia 07 07 ?? any good or shall i bin em.  pps has anyone tried a 12 AY7[lower gain] valve in v2 if so what was it like?..